Allons-y Impossible Girl
by LyliLovexxxxx
Summary: Rose doesn't want to travel with the Doctor after he regenerates, so he takes to going around alone until he meets one of Clara's echo's in a bar one night. She becomes his companion and they go on the adventures together, but it seems there may be more to Clara Oswald then even she realises.
1. Impossible Girl

**Allon-sy Impossible Girl**

_Rose doesn't want to travel with the Doctor after he regenerates, so he takes to going around alone until he meets one of Clara's echo's in a bar one night. She becomes his companion and they go on the adventures together, but it seems there may be more to Clara Oswald then even she realises._

**Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who**

Chapter 1

The Doctor wandered through the streets of London late at night, looking around at all the people recovering from the Sycorax attack two days ago. Christmas. The Christmas he lost Rose, because she didn't want him after he regenerated. He was too different, and personally he didn't blame her. To her it would have been only a few hours but to him it had been years. A century of just wondering around. He was lonely. He still missed Rose, he was sure that he had been falling in love with her. He hadn't found anyone to travel with him. No one who made him so happy. He wasn't sure what made him come back to this night. it was a bit random.

He didn't really know where he was going, but he found himself standing outside a bar. Figuring he had nowhere else to be he went in. It was very busy but he managed to get a spare bar stool. After a while, a girl came over to serve him. It took a while and as he waited a thing on the television the Doctors eye. It was a report on how a scientist had tested the stuff falling from the sky and confirmed that it was anything but snow.

"Nutters, the lot of them" the bar girl commented, setting the drink down in front of him and noticing him watching the news.

"Who?" He asked her, picking up his drink.

"Them who fired those missiles, I mean those alien things were leaving, they didn't have to kill them" she said as she began to clean some glasses.

"I agree" the Doctor nodded in approval "Harriet Jones had no right to do that"

"That was her?" the girl asked her eyes widening. The Doctor's brow furrowed. He was sure that those big brown doe eyes of her flashed gold for a minute there. "I thought she was half decant"

This girl was familiar. Achingly familiar. She was pretty, the Doctor observed, with long brown hair that was curled at the ends and long eyelashes. She was short and slim and the nose was funny in a cute way. Everything about her screamed familiar at him but he couldn't quite place her.

"Sorry have we met before?" the Doctor asked after a few moments "Only you seem kind of familiar."

The bar girl stared at him for a few moments before shaking her head with a cute smile saying "Nope, I'd remember a handsome face like yours"

"Right" the Doctor said looking down at his drink.

"You all right?" she asked with what seemed like genuine concern.

"Yeah" he said with a slight laugh "I'm all right"

"Really, cuz I've been bar tending since I was a teenager and I know when a guy isn't alright" she said. The Doctor smiled slightly.

He sighed heavily "I changed, and my friend… well she didn't want to travel with me anymore"

"I'm sorry" she said "If it helps, I think she's mad running away from a guy like you"

"Thank you" he said, downing the rest of his drink. She wandered off to serve a few costumers nearby leaving him alone again.

He tried to figure out where he'd seen her before. he cast his mind back, but the only thing he seemed to find was this odd sensation that came with looking at her. it was almost like... guilt. Guilt and gratitude.

She came back a few hours later, wiping down the bar and looked at him in mild surprise. "You still here?"

"Well, I got nowhere to be" he said "Can I get another one?" he nudged the empty glass towards her. She raised her eyebrows and refilled it.

"So, where exactly did you and your friend travel?" she asked "What sort of places did you see, what sort of people did you meet?"

He watched her eyes shine at the thought. "I take it you've never travelled, but would like to" he deducted from her enthusiasm.

"No," she sighed "All I ever wanted to do was travel, but you don't get anywhere on a barmaids salary" she gestured around her at the shabby pub.

"Don't you want more?" he enquired "How old are you, 20?"

"24" she corrected with a slight blush. "And course I want more, I just have no way of getting it. I was going to go and see it all, after university, but then… well I had to cancel."

The Doctor studied her. She was charming, witty and beautiful. She made him smile. He still missed Rose, and he didn't want this girl to replace her but still…

"You could come with me" he offered. He wasn't entirely sure what made him say it, but it would be nice to have someone to ask questions and he was now highly curious to discover what was so familiar about this girl.

"Really?" She looked like she wanted to believe him but couldn't bring herself to. "You'd take a girl who you only just met?"

"Of course, how do you think this works?" he grinned and she grinned back before laughing.

"What?"

"Does this really work?"

"Yes, shouldn't it?"

"So you just crook your finger and girls run away with you to god knows where. I don't even know who you are. You could be anyone." she said. Deep down she knew that wasn't true, this man didn't need any kind of explanation for her.

"I'm the Doctor"

"Doctor Who?"

"Just the Doctor" he said "And you are?"

"The Impossible Girl" the bar girl said with a cheeky smile.

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	2. ClaraOswin

**Allons-y Impossible Girl**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who**

Chapter 2

The Doctor walked around the back of the pub to where he'd parked the TARDIS. The bar girl followed him with an apprehensive look on her face. It was very late, her shift had finished around midnight and she didn't have a jacket for some reason. She wore a tight black v-neck t-shirt and ripped black skinny jeans with red chucks on her feet and she looked like any other bar girl.

"What?" he asked as she looked around suspiciously.

"Well, you aren't going to murder me or something are you?" she asked sceptically as he put the key in the lock "What's that?"

"This is my time machine!" he said, pushing the door open. The girl stayed where she was, smirking at him with raised eyebrows.

"No way am I getting in there with you?" she said.

"Why not?" the Doctor asked bewildered.

"Because it's tiny!" she said. "What is it, some kind of snogbox?"

"Oi, she is not a snogbox" he said angrily and the girl started to laugh. The look on his face was too much for her. Slowly, the Doctor started to smile at the delightful sound of her laughter. "Just…" he stepped away from the door "Go inside. Go inside and I promise your life will never be the same again."

Maybe it was that strange, earnest look on his face, or just the way he said it, but she moved forwards and gently pushed on the door. Apprehensively she stepped into the console room and the lights flickered on. She froze.

It was…

Impossible!

She back up out of the door with wide eyes. The Doctor grinned as she did the traditional circuit of the TARDIS, checking it was normal sized and had four walls and all that. Then she came back to the front and stuck her head in again, just to check she hadn't imagined it.

"Its…" she looked at the Doctor in astonishment "Bigger on the inside!"

"Yep!" he grinned at her and she grinned back. He led the way into the TARDIS and said "It's called a TARDIS. Time And Relative Dimension In Space."

"It's a time machine!" she practically shouted. He nodded.

"Where…" she was so stunned she couldn't speak. "Where did you get one of these?"

"I borrowed it" the Doctor said "Ran away in her to see the stars"

"Its… I… This is just…. Wow!" she spun around trying to look at everything at once. The Doctor laughed at her. "So this is your ship?" she asked, leaning on the console.

"Yes"

"And it can go anywhere?" she asked, her face hopeful.

"In all of time and space" he promised with a smile. "I can take you to every star in the universe, every moment in history"

"Its... incredible!" she breathed.

He grinned at her from across the console. Then he frowned slightly. "So, Impossible Girl, do you have a name?"

"I do" she said.

When she didn't say anything he added, "Well, what is it?"

"What's your name?" the girl asked "Doctor… that can't just be it"

"Well it is. Now please?" he said, his face twisting in a strange smile.

She didn't say anything at first, then sighed and said "Clara. Clara Oswald. People call me Oswin though."

"Clara." The Doctor tried it out on his tongue. It was pretty, and suited her perfectly. "Oswin." It was nice, but didn't seem quite right.

"Yeah. Long story really, I've not been Clara in years." She said and something flickered across her eyes. It was gone a moment later though.

"Well, any objections to being Clara again?" he asked.

She sighed. It usually bugged her when people wanted to call her Clara, but somehow she didn't feel the usual stab when this Doctor said her real name. She smiled and shook her head. "You really want to take me with you?" she asked hopefully, biting her lip. Even though she knew she should, she didn't have any trouble believing this man when he told her it was a time machine.

"Of course" the Doctor grinned "It's not much fun travelling alone. I've seen a lot of it already, and the best part is showing someone else it all"

"Alright then, I'm in!" she grinned. He jumped up and grinned.

"Really? You don't worry about your family or nothing like that?" he asked, feeling he better cover that now before he got too excited. Clara snorted.

"I don't do family. The pub will live without me and my other part time job is hardly demanding Anyway, didn't you say this was a time machine?" she raised an eyebrow and he grinned again. It was amazing, how after so many miserable years without Rose this girl could make him smile so much in one night. He wasn't letting her replace her, but still...

"Alright then, off we go!" the wheezing sound started up and the centre column of the console began to move up and down. "Allons-y! Oo, I like that, I should say that more often!"

Clara laughed, he flipped the switches and took off into the time vortex with his new companion.

**Review and tell me what you think!**


	3. New Earth

**Allons-y Impossible Girl**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who **

Chapter 3

"So my ship travels anywhere in all of time and space!" the Doctor shouted, flipping switches, pressing buttons and whacking things with his hammer. Clara watched him in fascination, trying to get over the bigger on the inside thing and beginning to question her sanity. "I can take you to the future, to the past, to alien planets" the Doctor grinned "So Clara Oswald, where do you wanna go, what do you wanna see"

Clara was ready to answer when he asked her that, and she was suddenly hit with an overwhelming sensation of de-ja-vu. Like he'd asked her that question before. The edges of her vision began to swarm and it was almost as if the console room was turning a silver colour. She shook her head and took a deep breath, forcing the feeling away. The Doctor didn't seem to notice anything had happened so she laughed and said "Um… well…"

"How about two in one?" the Doctor suggested "I'll take you to a planet in the future!" he raised his eyebrows and she laughed.

"You're the expert" she said with a shrug. The ride was a bit bumpy, the floor swaying and rocking, but it was a rather nice sensation. Finally a loud, wheezing, grating sound filled their ears and they came to a stop.

"Where are we?" she asked in a hushed voice, looking at the doors. The Doctor grinned.

"Let's take a look" he said, pulling on his long coat and leading the way out of the doors. Clara hesitated for a millisecond before following.

They were on a space of grass, with a large city rising up above the ocean in front of them. The tall buildings were impressive and beautiful, silver and fading into the bright sky. Clara's hair blew in the wind as she stared around her, completely astounded.

"I'm- I'm-"Clara was so amazed she could barely string too words together. "This is definitely not…" she watched the spaceship things swoop over her head towards the city. "This can't be… my world"

The Doctor laughed. "That's because it isn't. It's the year five billion and twenty three. We're in the galaxy M87, and this? This is New Earth."

Clara spun around so fast her ponytail began to wrap around her neck. "It's just..." she pushed it back over her shoulder "It's incredible. Different ground beneath my feet, different sky, and different air, new sounds…and what's that smell?"

"Apple grass" the Doctor informed her, loving her reaction. She laughed out loud in delight.

"Just fantastic!" she announced.

They walked a little way off, unaware of the small robot following. The Doctor lay on his back and took one arm out his coat so Clara could lie on it. She pulled her hair loose and lay down next to him, running her fingers through the grass.

"So, the year five billion, the sun expands, the Earth gets roasted." The Doctor explained to her as they gazed up at the sky. He felt a pang as he thought back to him and Rose on the observation deck. "So anyway, planet gone, all rocks and dust, but the human race lives on, spread out across the stars. Soon as the Earth burns up, oh yeah, they get all nostalgic, big revival movement, but then find this place. Same size as the Earth, same air, same orbit. Lovely. Call goes out, the humans move in."

"What's the city called?" asked Clara.

"New New York." He said promptly. She turned her head to look at him and raised her dark eyebrows.

"Oh, come on."

"It is." He insisted "It's the city of New New York. Strictly speaking, it's the fifteenth New York since the original, so that makes it New New New New New New New New New New New New New New York. What?" he asked as Clara started to laugh at him. "What?"

"Nothing" she said, still laughing. "You're just… Its nothing." They settled into a comfortable silence for a while. In the end Clara asked "Can we go and visit New New York then, see what becomes of the human race in the future?"

"Well, I thought we might go there first." He pointed at an elegant pair of curved skyscrapers standing apart from the city on their side of the water.

"Why, what is it?" Clara asked

"Some sort of hospital. Green moon on the side. That's the universal symbol for hospitals. I got this. A message on the psychic paper." He held out a blank sheet of paper in a worn wallet. The words _Ward 26 Please Come _appeared on it.

"What on Earth is that?" Clara asked, silently wondering how much more weird she could take before her head exploded.

"Oh right, sorry, you're new to this" the Doctor said "Its psychic paper. Let's anyone see what I want them too."

"That's handy" Clara commented "So do you always travel through the universe with a purpose?"

"Well" the Doctor pondered this for a brief moment. She didn't seem to mind that he'd brought her here for his own reasons. In fact, Clara was just thrilled to be standing on a different planet."Someone wants to see me at any rate"

"Come on, then." Clara said, jumping to her feet. "Let's go."

The hospital lobby was massive and white, with a mixture of ordinary visitors and what Clara assumed were nurses dressed in long white robes.

"I don't like hospitals. They give me the creeps." The Doctor stated as they came in through the big glass doors.

"The Pleasure Gardens will now take visitors carrying green or blue identification cards for the next fifteen minutes. Visitors are reminded that cuttings from the gardens are not permitted." The tannoy announced.

"Very smart. Not exactly NHS." Clara said, looking around her. The Doctor wasn't really listening.

"No shop. I like the little shop." He muttered. Clara rolled her eyes.

"You know, wouldn't they have found a cure for everything by now?" she asked him.

"The human race moves on, but so do the viruses. It's an ongoing war." He replied knowledgeably. Clara nodded in understanding and began to look around again. Her eyes landed on the nurses and only then did she realise that along with acting like nuns, they had furry faces and whiskers.

"They're cats." She murmured, unable to take her eyes off them.

"Now, don't stare." He scolded gently "Think what you look like to them, all white and brown." Then he'd lost interest and was back to complaining "That's where I'd put the shop. Right there." He wondered away from Clara, who was still shocked to a standstill, and stepped into a lift.

"Ward 26, thanks!" he said with a smile and the doors closed just as Clara jogged towards him.

"There's another lift, I'll catch you up!" Clara yelled through the metal.

"Ok!" the Doctor yelled back "Ward 26, watch out for the disinfectant"

"The what?" she muttered as she stepped into the lift and said hesitantly "Ward 26 please"

The disinfectant turned out to be a process that involved soaking her, blasting her and then blasting her with hot air. Needless to say she was very clean when she stepped out of the lift. The corridor she ended up in didn't look like a hospital ward. It was narrow, filthy and grey with junk and wire all over the floor.

"Okay…" she said to herself "Doctor" she called out hopefully. She didn't get a reply so she turned to get back in the lift when something came out of the shadows. She looked at it, wrinkling her nose slightly. It was small and white with weird pattern patches on his skin and wide eyes.

"Human child is clean" he said in a strange Irish accent "You will come this way"

Clara raised her eyebrows at him, but followed him anyway. He led her to a strange room lit with florescent lights. What looked disturbingly like a human brain bubbled in a tank attached to some kind of system and piece of what she assumed was skin was stretched inside a metal frame with two eyes and red lips.

"Err…" Clara was starting to think nothing would surprise her.

"Welcome pure-blood human" the skin said. Clara looked around her.

"Ok um what are you?" she asked. She knew this was a hospital from the far future but this seemed like some sick form of life support.

"I am the last human in existence" she answered with a pitiful air of importance. Clara felt a dull twang of familiarity at those words, buried deep inside her mind.

"Yeah, I dunno wear you've been in the last five billion years but there's a whole planet of them out there" Clara said taking a step back.

"Mutants!" shrieked the skin making Clara wince. "Moisturise me, moisturise me" The strange creature scuttled towards her and sprayed her with something.

"If you say so" she said "but they look more human than you do." As she said this a distant voice echoed around her brain. _You're just skin Cassandra, Lipstick and skin. _She didn't recognise it, yet at the same time she did. Her vision started to go funny at the edge again, this time her seeing an observation deck with this skin thing and a blonde woman talking. Clara shook her voice and murmured "Cassandra"

"How do you know my name?" she snapped and Clara was momentarily confused. Then she shrugged.

"Lucky guess" she suggested "I'm going, either way"

However as she stepped away she was surrounded by a machine, everything sparked into life and then a purple light whooshed out of Cassandra into Clara. Her body collapsed, and Clara felt her mind being forced out of the way.

"Mistress!" Chip ran to Clara's body and helped her up.

"Moisturise me" the CassClara being said, and then caught sight of herself in the glass. She touched the ends of her tousled brown hair and then stroked her cheek. "Well it could have been worse. She's a bit one colour" she stared down at the black clothes "Pretty I suppose, but funny nose and - Dear Lord! - She's tiny! How could anyone cope with being this short?"

"Mistress is beautiful" Chip said breathlessly.

"Yes, well I suppose so" CassClara said, twisting both ways "And I do like these curves and her _eyes. _They're enormous!"

Once she had analysed every inch of Clara's body CassClara turned to the now dead machine that held Cassandra's brain. "Oh, the brain lead expired. My old mistress is dead" said Chip in a woeful voice.

"Ah but I'm safely tucked away in here" CassClara tapped her temple with a long red painted fingernail. "With the human child buried."

"Who was she?" Chip asked "How did a pure-blood human come from the city?"

"Her name is…" CassClara paused then said "Clara Oswald. But she'd not from the city no she comes from far away. She travelled here with…" her look of concentration immediately became one of rage. "It's him!" she hissed "That man… he's the Doctor!"

Her expression once again became thoughtful. "Hmm… he is expecting her in ward 26. I must find out what the sisterhood is doing. Well, let's take her for a test ride" CassClara said before strolling towards the lift.

* * *

The Doctor had only known Clara Oswald for a few hours. He knew her name, she was a barmaid, and that she was 24 years old but that was about it. He couldn't really comment on her personality, but he still thought she was acting strange. She gave too good suggestions, seemed too well informed and not at all phased by the futuristic illnesses he showed her. He was fairly sure something was wrong when they discovered grown flesh with every single disease and illness and the girl who had so far come across as incredibly human, remained unmoved, uncaring.

So he resolved to go out on a hunch and hope for the best. He demanded the sisterhood cat nuns to tell him what they had done to her, hoping they might reveal that something had happened to her. He was pretty pleased with himself when Clara then said "Oh, all right, clever clogs. Smarty pants. Lady-killer!"

"Ah-hah so there is something wrong with you, sorry, her!" the Doctor yelled pointing an accusing finger. Clara looked shocked.

"You mean…" Cassandra was lost, Clara's memories were locked too tight to provide helpful information.

"Please," the Doctor snorted, adjusting his tie which Cassandra had been playing with "I hardly know this girl at all, completely guessing there. But trust me she is a completely innocent human girl so whatever is controlling her, whatever is inside her I want it out because as far as I know she never did anything to hurt anyone. Now what's happened?" he demanded.

"I knew the sisterhood were up to something but I wanted a pure human body and then by ideal chance your mind to find it out" Clara said, putting one hand on her hip and flicking her hair.

"Who are you?" the Doctor asked, recognising the voice.

"The last human!" CassClara announced with that same air of importance she had earlier.

"Cassandra" the Doctor groaned.

"Wake up and smell the perfume!" she smiled before spraying something in his face. He fell to the floor and the nurse knelt beside him.

"What have you done?" she cried in despair "I have to fetch the matron"

"Yes that's right" CassClara said as Chip scuttled up behind her "Call for Matron, sound the alarm" then she yanked the power cable open and set off the alarms.

* * *

The first thing Clara was aware of was a massive relief of pressure on her head. It was like a enormous weight had been pressing down on her brain and then it had been let up. She doubled over and pressed a hand to her head. When she looked up she was still in the basement room but all the equipment was dead and the Doctor was there. However he was acting a bit weird.

"Oh, my. This is different." He said in a strange voice.

"Doctor?" Clara asked, giving him a questioning look. He ignored her.

"Goodness me, I'm a man. Yum. So many parts. And hardly used. Oh, oh, two hearts! Oh, baby, I'm beating out a samba!" he made strange jerkish movements and thus Clara concluded that the Doctor was probably suffering from the same thing that had caused her banging headache. She briefly remembered the purple light coming from the skin towards her.

"Er, Cassandra wasn't it? Were you inside my head!"

"Oo, he's slim, and a little bit foxy." This CassDoctor was ignoring her again. Then she abruptly and said "You've thought so too. I've been inside your head. You've been looking. You like it."

Clara looked at her, opening her mouth to retort. However at that moment a crowd of disgusting looking people with grey tunics and horrible skin stumbled into the room, there arms outstretched.

"What do we do? What would he do? The Doctor, what the hell would he do?" the CassDoctor yelled, completely panicking. Clara looked at her in disbelief. How was she supposed to know?

"I've only just met him!" Clara snapped. She looked around for an escape, her eyes landing on a metal ladder behind them. "Ladder. We've got to get up." she said, stepping towards it. The CassDoctor grabbed her and shoved her aside snarling

"Out of the way, shortie!"

"What the hell are we supposed to do?" Clara asked as she climbed up the ladder. She was glad that she was fast since the Doctor was a foot taller than her (which was easy when she stood at barely five foot) and his legs could cover several more rungs then hers could.

"I don't know do I, but I certainly don't want to be infected by every disease in the galaxy!" CassDoctor snapped.

"Fabulous" Clara muttered and then the Matron grabbed a hold of her ankle. "Oi get off me!"

While the Matron ranted on about the sisterhood's life's work being ruined CassDoctor had reached the top of the ladder but the shuttle wouldn't open. Clara watched in horror as one of the infected people grabbed the Matron's ankle and she became one of them. As the diseases infected her she let go of Clara and the ladder. She fell, screaming.

"Cassandra!" she yelled desperately as the infected gained on them "Go into me, and prey the Doctor's got a better idea!"

"You asked for it!" CassDoctor said rolling his eyes. The purple light issued from him and towards her again. The pressure built in her head, and everything went black.

"Oh brilliant, short city. Open it!" CassClara said as she took over Clara's form.

"Not until you let her go!" the Doctor yelled angrily "She is an innocent human girl, and you're compressing her to death!"

"She's useless, we need you!" Cassandra snapped.

"I order you to leave her!"

Clara felt the pressure release again a few moments later and the CassDoctor said "No matter how difficult the situation, there is no need to shout!"

"Cassandra, get out of him!" Clara ordered "He's a hell of a lot more useful than me!"

"How do you know, you've only just met him!" CassDoctor argued, mainly to be annoying.

"He has a time machine, I am a barmaid now let him go!" Clara screamed, coming right up next to him since the flesh was coming closer.

"Whenever I'm in you he starts on the whole, you're an innocent human thing and won't do anything" CassDoctor complained. Clara rolled her eyes.

"I can't do anything!" she said, gazing imploringly into the Doctor's eyes. CassDoctor groaned.

"I can't believe I'm doing this" he said and then the purple light swooped passed Clara and into the first infected human. "Urgh, I'm disgusting!" she crowed.

The Doctor pulled out his sonic screwdriver and opened the shuttle, climbing through and yanking Clara up after him.

"Ah nice to see you again, sorry about her" he said, helping her stumble through the door as it began to close.

"Oh no you don't!" Cassandra shrieked. The purple light just made it through the door and slammed into Clara's back, knocking her over.

"That was your last warning Cassandra!" the Doctor shouted. CassClara sat up with a vacant look in her eye.

"Inside her head. They're so alone. They keep reaching out, just to hold us. All their lives and they've never been touched." She murmured. The Doctor looked down at her, and then finally reached out his hand to help her up.

* * *

Later, once all the diseased were cured, the Doctor and the CassClara walked through the hospital as the New New York Police Department arrested the sisterhood.

"The Face of Boe!" the Doctor suddenly remembered and he jogged down ward 26 to the last patient left, a large alien head in a tank. "You were supposed to be dying." He said with a smile.

"There are better things to do today. Dying can wait." The voice echoed inside their heads, the face's lips not moving.

"Oh, I hate telepathy. Just what I need, a head full of big face." CassClara moaned.

"Shh!"

"I have grown tired with the universe, Doctor, but you have taught me to look at it anew." The face said.

"There are legends, you know, saying that you're millions of years old." The Doctor said with a wry smile.

"There are? That would be impossible. Only one of us is truly impossible" The face said. His eyes drifted to CassClara for a moment, but the Doctor thought nothing of it.

"Wouldn't it just." The Doctor agreed, ignoring his last comment "I got the impression there was something you wanted to tell me."

"A great secret."

"So the legend says."

"It can wait." The face said indifferently.

"Oh, does it have to?" the Doctor whined. The face chuckled slightly.

"We shall meet again, Doctor, for the third time, for the last time, and the truth shall be told. Until that day" he said, then he beamed away from the hospital in light blue atoms.

"That is enigmatic." The Doctor said appreciatively "That, that is, that is textbook enigmatic." Then he stood and turned to CassClara "And now for you."

"But everything's happy. Everything's fine. Can't you just leave me?" she said bitterly.

"You've lived long enough. Leave that body and end it, Cassandra." The Doctor said sternly. Then CassClara held a hand to her face and began to cry.

"I don't want to die." She sobbed.

"No one does."

"Help me." She begged

"I can't." he replied, slightly gentler.

"Mistress!" an eager voice broke their exchange and Chip scampered up to them.

"Oh, you're alive." CassClara said, mildly surprised but pleased none the less.

"I kept myself safe for you, mistress." He informed them adoringly. CassClara considered this, then looked at him in hungry intrest.

"A body. And not just that, a volunteer." She decided.

"Don't you dare. He's got a life of his own." The Doctor warned her but Chip turned to glare at him.

"But I worship the mistress." He said determinedly as CassClara winked at him "I welcome her."

"You can't, Cassandra, you-" the Doctor began but it was too late. The life force rushed from Clara's body into Chip's. Clara immediately collapsed but the Doctor caught her.

"Oh! You all right?" he asked in concern. She nodded and started to get up only to fall again. "Whoa! Okay?"

"Yeah." Clara nodded, steadying herself. Then she noticed the Doctor was still holding her. She sighed, then grinned and said "Hello!"

"Hello." The Doctor grinned back "Welcome back."

"Oh, sweet Lord. I'm a walking doodle." CassChip's voice interrupted them, the Irish accent gone.

"You can't stay in there. I'm sorry, Cassandra, but that's not fair." The Doctor said angrily. Then he calmed a bit and said "I can take you to the city. They can build you a skin tank and you can stand trial for what you've done."

"Well, that would be rather dramatic. Possibly my finest hour, and certainly my finest hat, but I'm afraid we don't have time." CassChip said in a matter of fact way "Poor little Chip is only a half-life, and he's been through so much. His heart is racing so. He's failing. I don't think he's going to last" her final word was strained as he (or she, it wasn't quite clear which) fell to her knees. Clara immediately rushed to his side, concern bright in her eyes.

"Are you all right?" the Doctor asked gently.

"I'm fine. I'm dying, but that's fine." CassChip looked up at him and nodded, her voice calm.

"I can take you to the city."

"No, you won't." it was neither an order nor a request "Everything's new on this planet. There's no place for Chip and me anymore. You're right, Doctor. It's time to die, and that's good." She looked at him for reassurance.

The Doctor nodded. "Come on. There's one last thing I can do." He said, and they helped him to his feet.

* * *

He took her back to a night where she was human and beautiful. Cassandra told herself she was beautiful, and died in her own arms. The Doctor and Clara looked on, before leaving.

Once they were back in the TARDIS, the Doctor flew them into the time-vortex before finally speaking.

"So, there you go. First trip in the TARDIS!" he forced a smile "Sorry you didn't really experience much of it yourself." Clara smiled fleetingly and he continued "So, do you want to keep going, or do you want to go home?"

There was a pause. Finally she asked "Is it always like that?"

"Like what?" he asked, although he knew what she meant.

"So amazing. So thrilling. So dangerous." She prompted. "I watched that matron get infected with every disease in the universe, and then fall to her death. And I couldn't help her, because catching her would've infected me as well." The Doctor watched her as she spoke, not smiling or interrupting. "Then you saved them. You found a way to save them all, instead of killing them. So is it always like this? You lose some lives but you try and save what you can?"

"Yes." The Doctor said. "History… some things have to happen. Some people are fixed points in time, and saving them could change the future. I can show you history, but we can't save everyone."

A silence fell over them. Clara stared at him, and he stared back, neither of them blinking or looking away.

"OK then" she said quietly. "Then we keep going"

The Doctor grinned. "Really?"

"Really." She nodded, and then held up her hand as he opened his mouth. "But first, I'm exhausted. I was bar tending all night before this, and it has been a very long day."

The Doctor scowled. "You humans and your sleep" he sighed "Alright then, bedrooms third door on your left down that corridor, wardrobes around the corner"

"Great!" Clara grinned. Then she launched forward and gave the Doctor a hug. He was slightly taken aback at first, but it was nice and made him smile. "And when I'm up" Clara said as she headed out of the console, "I want to see some stars!"

**Please Review!**


	4. Tooth and Claw

**Allons-y Impossible Girl**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who**

Chapter 4

Clara announced her presence in the console room that morning by saying "I don't think your snogbox likes me"

The Doctor looked up from the console to see her frowning at him. "Well she's never going to like you if you keep calling her that" he scolded "What's she done now?"

Clara had been traveling with the Doctor for a few weeks now, and in that time the TARDIS had played a series of mean tricks on her, including switching her bedroom and the swimming pool when she was in the bathroom and hiding her toothbrush every other night.

"She hid my clothes and all the towels while I was in the shower and then dropped the temperature in the corridor to freezing. I'm only glad she didn't move my bedroom!" Clara complained.

"Ah well, she's only messing around" the Doctor said fondly, stroking the console. "C'mon" he said when he noticed Clara was sulking "I'll take you somewhere in history you want to visit. You've not been to the past yet!"

This cheered Clara up considerably. "Can we visit Victorian London?" she asked with a smile and the Doctor grinned.

"Your wish is my command!" he said, steering the TARDIS through the time vortex. Clara laughed.

"You can't go into Victorian London dressed like that, go find a dress from the wardrobe!" the Doctor told her indicating to her jeans and t-shirt, so Clara went back down the corridor. Thankfully the wardrobe was where it should be and she climbed up to the rack of Victorian style dresses. After shifting through them for a while she found a dress a sort of blue colour, the long darker skirt ruffled with a lighter sort of jacket on top. She looked at it, and had a strange feeling she'd owned it before. But that was ridiculous; she had never seen a Victorian dress in her life. She fiddled around with it until she figured out how exactly to get it on and again was sure she had worn it before.

"Where did you get this?" Clara asked the TARDIS, but it only groaned in return.

Finally she had it on properly; although it was quite tight and buttoned around her neck she did like it. She found a pair of heeled black lace up boots that seemed appropriate and pulled them on. Clara had thanked her stars that she had learned to run in high heels when she was 16, since they ended up doing a lot of it with the Doctor and she hated being so much shorter then him. She was having quite a lot of fun braiding her hair in a complex way even though she didn't recall learning how to do it, when the Doctor poked his head through the door and said "Are you ready yet?"

"Yeah, coming" Clara told him, and resolved to leave the last part of the braid loose rather than pinning it up like it should be done. The two went to the console room, the Doctor telling her all about the interesting things that happened in 1879.

"Come on then!" he said enthusiastically, pulling on his coat and hurtling out the TARDIS doors. However he did not find himself in the streets of Victorian London as he expected, but in a wide open country space. The sound of rifles slid the smile off his face and he raised his hand, looking round at the men in redcoats surrounding them with there guns aimed. Clara raised her hands as well.

"You will explain your presence." The man on a horse demanded in a Scottish accent. Upon hearing it the Doctor looked delighted.

"Are we in Scotland?" he asked gleefully in a flawless Scottish accent. Clara would have thought he was native.

"How can you be ignorant of that?" the man asked.

"Oh, I'm, I'm dazed and confused. We've been walking over hill and over dale. Isn't that right?" he looked at Clara and nodded.

She didn't think she could do an accent half as convincing so she resolved to speak in more proper voice then usual saying "Quite. For hours and hours." The Doctor grinned at her and she raised her eyebrows.

"Will you identify yourself, sir?" the man asked, his gun still aimed at them.

"I'm Doctor James McCrimmon, from the township of Balamory." The Doctor said with very little hesitation "I have my credentials, if I may." He gestured down at his pocket and when the man nodded pulled out his psychic paper "As you can see," he continued "a Doctorate from the University of Edinburgh. I trained under Doctor Bell himself."

"Let them approach." An upper-class English voice came from the carriage at his words.

"I don't think that's wise, ma'am." The man on the horse said, eyeing the Doctor and Clara wearily.

"Let them approach." The voice repeated once more and the man sighed.

"You will approach the carriage, and show all due deference." He instructed them sternly and the Doctor walked past him, saluting him in acknowledgment. As they approached the carriage a footman opened the door. There, sitting only a few feet away from her was a woman Clara had learned about all through school, read about in a hundred history books and seen in portraits and very old photographs. Queen Victoria, the Imperial Widow herself.

"Clara," The Doctor said with a smile "might I introduce her Majesty Queen Victoria. Empress of India and Defender of the Faith."

"Clara Oswald, Ma'am." She said politely with a curtsy. Victoria nodded at her and then turned to the Doctor.

"But you, Doctor. Show me these credentials." She said with interest. He handed her the psychic paper wordlessly and her eyes swept over it quickly.

"Why didn't you say so immediately?" she cried "It states clearly here that you have been appointed by the Lord Provost as my Protector."

"Does it?" The Doctor asked, thrown for a moment "Yes, it does. Good. Good. Then let me ask - why is Your Majesty travelling by road when there's a train all the way to Aberdeen?" he said with a frowned.

"A tree on the line."

"An accident?"

"I am the Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland." Victoria said importantly. Then she darkened slight and said "Everything around me tends to be planned."

"An assassination attempt?" the Doctor asked her.

"People want to kill you?" Clara asked, her brow creased in confusion. She hated history at school so despite having read about Victoria, she hadn't read too carefully.

"I'm quite used to staring down the barrel of a gun." Victoria said, almost cheerfully.

"Sir Robert MacLeish lives but ten miles hence. We've sent word ahead. He'll shelter us for tonight, then we can reach Balmoral tomorrow." The man on a horse explained.

"This Doctor and his…" she tried to come up with a term to describe Clara. She eventually settled with "companion, will come with us."

"Yes, Ma'am. We'd better get moving - it's almost nightfall." The Redcoat said.

"Indeed. And there are stories of wolves in these parts. Fanciful tales intended to scare the children. But good for the blood, I think." She smiled at the thought before calling "Drive on!"

The carriage began to move on and Clara and the Doctor fell into step behind.

"So, how many times has someone tried to kill her?" Clara asked him, back in her normal voice.

"1879? She's had, oh, six attempts on her life?" he told her, also dropping the accent. Then he grinned. "And I'll tell you something else. We just met Queen Victoria!"

"I know" Clara all but squealed "And this is your life! You can meet the most amazing people in history at the flip of a switch!"

"Yeah well," the Doctor threw his arm casually over her shoulder "It's your life as well now"

* * *

They travelled to an old house called the Torchwood estate. A man called Sir Robert greeted them, although he almost tried to turn them away. Clara did not care for his silent, bald, imposing staff, but said nothing. He showed them the observatory where a large telescope proved to be completely useless when it came to stargazing.

Later that night they all sat around the dinner table when the Doctor brought up the story of the wolf that had been mentioned earlier.

"Come, sir. You promised us a tale of nightmares." He said to Sir Robert. The man looked quite uncomfortable, but he could hardly refuse when Victoria joined in.

"Indeed. Since my husband's death, I find myself with more of a taste for supernatural fiction." She said. Everyone turned to her, not quite sure what to say. Eventually Clara broke the silence.

"You must miss him." She said softly. The queen's gaze landed on her, not exactly offended but unreadable.

"Very much. Oh, completely." She almost choked "And that's the charm of a ghost story, isn't it? Not the scares and chills, that's just for children, but the hope of some contact with the great beyond. We all want some message from that place. It's the Creator's greatest mystery that we're allowed no such consolation. The dead stay silent, and we must wait." She seemed distant, but then composed herself. "Come. Begin your tale, Sir Robert. There's a chill in the air. The wind is howling through the eaves. Tell us of monsters."

Robert sighed. "The story goes back three hundred years. Every full moon, the howling rings through the valley. The next morning, livestock is found ripped apart and devoured."

The Captain didn't seem quite as taken by the story as the others and was happily digging into his food. "Tales like this just disguise the work of thieves. Steal a sheep and blame a wolf, simple as that." He said brashly.

"But sometimes a child goes missing." Robert said in a slightly agitated way "Once in a generation, a boy will vanish from his homestead."

"Are there descriptions of the creature?" the Doctor asked in interest.

"Oh, yes, Doctor. Drawings and woodcarvings. And it's not merely a wolf. It's more than that. This is a man who becomes an animal." Robert's voice was soft, and there was fear behind it.

"You mean a werewolf?" Clara asked as the Doctor leaned forward in excitement. The full moon hung in the blacksky outside and the silver light shone eerily around the dimly lit dining room.

"My father didn't treat it as a story. He said it was fact. He even claimed to have communed with the beast, to have learned its purpose. I should have listened. His work was hindered. He made enemies. There's a monastery in the Glen of Saint Catherine. The Brethren opposed my father's investigations." Robert now spoke quickly, the tension building in his words.

Silently, the butler went to the window to the moonlight shone upon his face and began to chant "Lupus deus est" again and again. The Doctor had his back to him, but Clara frowned at his actions. Victoria seemed unphased.

"Perhaps they thought his work ungodly." She suggested lightly.

"That's what I thought. But now I wonder. What if they had a different reason for wanting the story kept quiet? What if they turned from God and worshipped the wolf?" Robert said.

"And what if they were with us right now?" Clara whispered, her voice shaking and the proper way of speaking forgotten.

Everyone turned to the butler who did not react to them at all. The Captain pulled out his revolver and aimed it.

"What is the meaning of this?" Victoria demanded.

"Explain yourself, Sir Robert!" the Captain shouted.

"What's happening?"

"I'm sorry, Your Majesty, they've got my wife." Robert sounded truly apologetic.

"Where are they!" the Doctor yelled, his accent also lost in the panic "Sir Robert, Clara come on!"

They raced from the room and down toward the cellars, Sir Robert leading the way and the Doctor and Clara running fast behind them. They kicked down the door to reveal a terrified group of people chained to the wall, cowering away from a large wolf that stood in the broken remains of a cage.

"Oh, that's beautiful." The Doctor said in admiraion, taking a step towards the creature.

"Come on, go. Get out!" Sir Robert yelled and Clara snatched the sonic screwdriver from the Doctor's hand, grateful he'd told her the setting for breaking chains last week.

The werewolf broke out of the cage a that point and the Doctor returned to his senses screaming "Out! Out! Out! Out! Out! Out! Out! Out! Out! Out!" at the shell-shocked women.

The wolf howled at the moon and threw a piece of wood at the Doctor, who ducked out the door and soniced it.

Clara watched as the steward handed out guns to the men while the Doctor soniced the shackles off the Lady's maids. The Lady Isobel herself was already free and crying in the arms of her husband.

"I can't leave you. What will you do?" she said desperately, and Clara briefly wondered if she could ever love someone that much to get that look in her eye.

"I must defend her Majesty. Now, don't think of me, just go." Sir Robert instructed, although Clara could see his heart breaking behind his eyes. Isobel seemed to accept this because she turned to her maids.

"All of you, at my side. Come on!" she ran off in the direction of the kitchens and Clara turned to the Doctor.

"What is it? Is it an alien?" she asked, determined not to show how terrified she really was.

"It could be any form of light modulated species triggered by specific wavelengths. Did it say what it wanted?" he asked the steward who was preparing the guns.

"The Queen, the Crown, the throne - you name it." He grunted, more focused on killing the wolf rather than finding out about it.

There was a very sudden loud crash at the other end of the passage way. The Doctor sprinted down that way to see the wolf coming through towards them having broken down a wooden door. He sprinted back the other way and grabbed Clara, hauling her out of the way.

"Fire! Fire!" the Steward shouted, firing the guns. There were several loud crashed and a lot of smoke. When it had cleared and everything was quiet again the Doctor came forward.

"All right, you men. We should retreat upstairs. Come with me." He said, turning to leave.

"I'll not retreat. The battle's done. There's no creature on God's Earth that could survive such an assault." The steward gloated, heading towards where he thought the body of the beast lay.

"I'm telling you, come upstairs!" the Doctor shouted.

"Listen to him" Clara pleaded. The steward ignored her, only turned back to face the Doctor.

"And I'm telling you, sir, I will sleep well tonight with that thing's hide upon my wall." He said. He stepped into the corridor and looked back. "It must have crawled away to die" he laughed just before something hoisted him towards the ceiling. Clara gasped in horror as the sounds of snarling and meat ripping was heard

"There's nothing we can do!" the Doctor said, and lead them all upstairs. In the dark hall Sir Robert began to franticly search for Victoria.

"Your Majesty? Your Majesty!" he shouted. She appeared at the top of the stairs and began to hurry down them.

"Sir Robert? What's happening?" she asked in a slightly shaken but none the less calm voice. "I heard such terrible noises." She

"Your Majesty, we've got to get out. But what of Father Angelo? Is he still here?" Sir Robert said quickly.

"Captain Reynolds disposed of him." Victoria informed them.

"The front door's no good, it's been boarded shut." The Doctor said before turning to the Queen with an interesting look on his face "Pardon me, Your Majesty. You'll have to leg it out of a window."

They went through into the drawing room where Robert scooted around the Queen saying "Excuse my manners, Ma'am, but I shall go first, the better to assist Her Majesty's egress."

"A noble sentiment, my Sir Walter Raleigh." Victoria said, quite out of breath.

"Yeah, any chance you could hurry up?" the Doctor shouted at them. Robert opened the window and prepared to climb out but the monks outside began to fire their guns. There was a scramble to close the glass.

"I reckon the monkey boys want us to stay inside." The Doctor mused.

"Do they know who I am?" Victoria asked in outrage.

"Begging your pardon your Majesty but I think that's the point" Clara told her, chewing her lip nervously and bobbing slightly in curtsy.

"What do you mean?"

"Well" the Doctor turned to stare at her "It bites you, then a wolf controls the empire"

"Stop this talk. There can't be an actual wolf." No sooner had the words left her mouth a vicious howl sounded throughout the house. They all stepping into the corridor to see the beast attempting to break down a door.

"Run?" Clara whispered the suggestion, her heart in her throat.

"Got any silver bullets?" the Doctor asked casually, his eyes fixed on the wolf.

"As it so happens I don't!" Clara muttered, trying to locate her legs.

"Then let's go with your idea. Your Majesty, as a Doctor, I recommend a vigorous jog." He said to Victoria, demonstrating slightly "Good for the health. Come on!" They took off up the stairs, Clara really wishing her skirt was shorter and the Queen puffing along in front of her.

The wolf smashed its way through the house and onto the staircase before it started to follow them. They ran all the way to the library corridor, the wolf gaining on them and just as it was about to pounce a shot rang out and Reynolds stood in the way, the beast retreating.

"I'll take this position and hold it. You keep moving, for God's sake! Your Majesty, I went to look for the property and it was taken. The chest was empty." He said, reloading his gun and gesturing for them to move on.

"I have it. It's safe." Victoria assured him with her hand to her heart.

"Then remove yourself, Ma'am. Doctor, you stand as Her Majesty's Protector. And you, Sir Robert, you're a traitor to the crown." For a horrible moment Clara thought he was going to shoot Sir Robert but he just turned and aimed his gun in the direction of the beast.

"Bullets can't stop it!" the Doctor shouted angrily.

"They'll buy you time. Now run!" Reynolds ordered. Victoria, Sir Robert and the Doctor rushed into the library but Clara stayed outside it with her eyes fixed on the Captain. He was ready to die for his Queen. She watched as the wolf pounced on him and tore him to pieces.

"Clara!" the Doctor grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her into the room.

"Barricade the door!" Robert yelled and the piled chairs and other items against it. They all became very still and quiet.

"Wait a minute. Shush, shush, wait a minute." The Doctor said, pressing his ear against the door. There was one lonely howl and then silence.

"It's stopped." The Doctor whispered in shock. He heard the wolf sniff at the door before slowly padding away "It's gone!"

"Listen" whispered Clara. There were footsteps and growls from the other side of the walls as the wolf walked around the room.

"Is this the only door?" the Doctor asked urgently, glancing all around him.

"Yes. No!" Sir Robert said expertly, and they quickly barricaded the second door. The noises continued outside the room, but the wolf didn't try to break in as it had all the other rooms.

"Is something stopping it?" Clara asked, carefully approaching the door.

"Something inside this room." The Doctor nodded "What is it? Why can't it get in?" he murmured.

"You're the expert" Clara said. Now that they were out of immediate danger she could feel her legs about to give out and gripped a nearby table, determined not to fall over "we just saw a werewolf!" she said faintly.

"We did" he grinned before going over to check her out. "Are you alright" he put his hands on her shoulders and steadied her.

"I will be" Clara promised. Victoria watched the exchange with wide eyes, only turning away when Sir Robert spoke to her.

"I'm sorry, Ma'am. It's all my fault. I should have sent you away. I tried to suggest something was wrong. I thought you might notice. Did you think there was nothing strange about my household staff?"

"Only a little bit" Clara muttered.

"What, exactly, I pray tell me, someone, please. What exactly is that creature?" Victoria demanded.

"You'd call it a werewolf, but technically it's a more of a lupine wavelength haemovariform." The Doctor said.

"And should I trust two? You who change your voices so easily? What happened to your accent? Why is she now so…common?"

Clara looked offended and the Doctor realised he'd slipped up. he rubbed the back of his head saying "Oh right, sorry, that's…"

"I'll not have it. No, sir. Not you, not that thing, none of it. This is not my world." Victoria insisted with fierce determination.

Both the Doctor and Clara exchanged looks, before something on the door caught Clara's eye.

"Whats that?" she asked, pointing to it. The Doctor ran up to take a closer look.

**"**Mistletoe. Sir Robert, did you father put that there?" he asked, examining it intently.

"I don't know. I suppose." Sir Robert seemed past caring.

"On the other door, too. No, a carving wouldn't be enough. I wonder." The Doctor, who's mind was four steps ahead of everyone else as usual leaned across and licked the wood. Clara pulled face."Viscum album, the oil of the mistletoe. It's been worked into the wood like a varnish. How clever was your dad? I love him. Powerful stuff, mistletoe. Bursting with lectins and viscotoxins."

"And the monks trained the wolf to react to it?" Clara guessed, thinking it was unlikely it was simply allergic.

"Nevertheless, that creature won't give up, Doctor, and we still don't possess an actual weapon." Robert said, interrupting their discovery.

"Oh, your father got all the brains, didn't he?" the Doctor said bluntly. Clara cleared her throat to point out he was being rude but he only grinned at her, walking over to the bookshelf.

"You want weapons?" he asked "We're in a library. Books! Best weapons in the world." He pulled his glasses out of his pocket and sliding them on his nose "This room's the greatest arsenal we could have." He reached behind him and pulled a few thick, heavy volumes off the shelf, throwing them to Clara with the instruction "Arm yourself"

So they began to go through the books as fast as they could, looking for anything that could help them. They went through biology, zoology, books on mistletoe, books on magic, forms of explosives, science and history. Finally they found a story on something falling to earth and the Doctor decided that was the wolf.

Then the Queen produced a large diamond, the Koh-I-Noor and explained how Prince Albert was always said it was not quite right, cutting it down again and again. In the end the Doctor's head nearly exploded as he connected everything. Albert had seen the trap and set another one inside it for the wolf. Then the wolf in question came crashing through the ceiling and they were running again. Lady Isobel delayed it by throwing mistletoe on it but they ran to the observatory and Clara watched Sir Robert gave his life to give them time to stop the wolf. The Doctor took the diamond and he and Clara began to shift the telescope while her Majesty held up her cross and preyed.

"I thought it didn't work!" Clara yelled over the crashing outside the door.

"It doesn't not as a telescope but as a light chamber!" the Doctor said "We power it up with moonlight and stop the wolf with the diamond." With one final push the telescope was in place just as the wolf burst in. It towered over the Queen, ready to bite her and start the empire of the wolf, but the Doctor threw the diamond in the path and drowned it in moonlight. It hung in the air, its arms outstretched until the Doctor made the light brighter and it vanished with a final howl.

* * *

Clara had had a very long day. After a lot of running and a lot of people dying she was ready to go and collapse on her bed in the TARDIS. Getting knighted by Queen Victoria was pretty awesome, being banished by her not so much and then they had to ride all the way back to the TARDIS on a wooden cart. The Doctor chattered on about the Royal family being werewolves and she laughed along even though her mind was somewhere else.

She watched Captain Reynolds and Sir Robert die to save their queen and country. They must have been scared, but still so brave and selfless to give up their own lives in order to save someone else's. Clara didn't think there was anyone in the world she would die to save. Then she looked at the Doctor, marvelling in his own brilliance and knows that if anything seriously tried to kill him, she would give her life so his could go on. In a heartbeat.

And the thought terrified her.

**Please Review!**


	5. School Reunion

**Allons-y Impossible Girl**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who**

Chapter 5

Clara felt quite uncomfortable as she entered the school canteen. Teenagers dressed in the same ugly grey uniform and strangely behaved teachers swarmed around making a lot of noise. They'd been at this secondary school for two days looking for anything suspicious since the Doctor had received an email from a friend of his ("Well, he wasn't really a friend") claiming there was something dodgy about the place. The Doctor was posing as a physics teacher, slipping a winning lottery ticket through the current teacher's door and causing her to run off on holiday. Then he'd suggested Clara pose as a dinner lady which was shot down immediately with her saying "No way am I serving chips to a load of rowdy kids along with a load of grumpy old women!" In the end she decided to apply for an assistant receptionist job, which she got immediately since the school was short of staff, even though it had plenty of teachers and dinner ladies.

It could have been a lot worse, she mostly just sent emails, answered the phone and she got to drink coffee and sit in a comfy chair. Also, with access to the school computers she quickly discovered that a few months ago when the new headmaster had arrived half the teachers and the entire kitchen staff was replaced, compulsory school dinners were introduced and the results immediately went up. It all seemed strange, yet the Doctor didn't think too much of it saying it was unlikely, yet still plausible.

Clara spotted him sitting at an empty table with a tray of school lunch in front of him and made her way across the noisy room, her white heals clicking on the varnished floor.

"Ok, so I admit I thought Micky was being dumb when he called us here-" the Doctor started as she sat down.

"If you thought that why'd you come?" Clara interrupted incredulously, nicking a few of his chips. He glared at her before continueing.

"But - and it pains me to say this - he was right. Boy in class this morning, got a knowledge way beyond planet Earth."

"Why's that?" Clara asked, pinching a few more chips. Apparently this was more interesting then aliens.

"You like these?" he asked her with a look of disgust "They're weird!"

"I love them!" Clara said, pulling the plate towards her "Been living off burnt soufflés in the TARDIS"

"Don't make them, that way you won't burn them" the Doctor reasoned but she wasn't listening to he changed the subject. "It's very well behaved, this place. I thought there'd be happy slapping hoodies. Happy slapping hoodies with ASBOs. Happy slapping hoodies with ASBOs and ringtones. Huh? Huh? Oh, yeah. Don't tell me I don't fit in!"

Clara had to laugh at this.

* * *

They sat in the staffroom with the teachers Clara claimed hadn't been replaced when the Headmaster joined. She stood next to the photocopier, pretending to work while the Doctor chatted with another teacher about the children's intelligence.

"Yesterday, I had a twelve year old girl give me the exact height of the Walls of Troy in cubits." He claimed when the Doctor told him of Milo.

"And, it's ever since the new headmaster arrived?"

"Finch arrived three months ago. Next day, half the staff got flu. Finch replaced them with that lot, except for the teacher you replaced, and that was just plain weird, her winning the lottery like that."

"How's that weird?" Clara smirked, eyebrows raised at the Doctor. She had told him people would think it strange.

"She never played. Said the ticket was posted through her door at midnight." The teacher said bewildered before walking off to talk to someone else. Clara approached the Doctor and leaned against him casually while poking him in the side. He smirked down at her and said

"Hmm. The world is very strange."

They were engaged in a silent staring contest when Finch himself entered followed by a woman with brown hair who was hardly old, yet not quite so young. When the Doctor saw her, he momentarily forgot the petite brunette leaning against him, and was lost in memories of the past and wonder of seeing her again.

"Excuse me, colleagues. A moment of your time. May I introduce Miss Sarah Jane Smith. Miss Smith is a journalist who's writing a profile about me for the Sunday Times. I thought it might be useful for her to get a view from the trenches, so to speak. Don't spare my blushes." Finch announced to them all before leaving them all. Looking around her, Sarah Jane's eyes landing on the Doctor who was still staring at her.

"Hello." She said, coming up to him and Clara who stepped aside slightly to look more professional.

"Oh, I should think so." The Doctor grinned in delight, earning a questioning look from both women.

"And, you two are?" she asked, looking between Clara and him.

"Hm? Er, Smith. John Smith." The Doctor finally managed to collect himself but was unable to stop smiling. Clara wondered if there was something wrong with him.

It took her one look at Sarah Jane for her to decide she didn't like her at all. She wasn't quite sure why, she'd heard the woman say about five words but still it didn't stop her from scowling like a child. It didn't matter because once she heard the Doctor's fake name she was lost in her own memories.

"John Smith. I used to have a friend who sometimes went by that name." she said, mainly to herself rather than either of them.

"Well, it's a very common name." the Doctor shrugged, his smile getting sort of creepy by now.

"He was a very uncommon man." Sarah Jane remained lost in her thoughts for a few more moments before coming back to earth and saying "Nice to meet you."

"Nice to meet you. Yes, very nice. More than nice. Brilliant." The Doctor grinned, shaking her hand with far more enthusiasm than seemed necessary. It wasn't improving Clara's mood.

"Er, so, er, have you worked here long?" Sarah Jane asked, stepping closer and lowering her voice.

"No. Er, it's only my second day."

"Oh, you're new, then. So, what do you think of the school? I mean, this new curriculum? So many children getting ill. Doesn't that strike you as odd?" she was in full reporter mode that made the Doctor's smile wider if that was even possible.

"You don't sound like someone just doing a profile." Clara got there before him, and both he and Sarah Jane were slightly taken aback by her cold tone of voice.

"Well, no harm in a little investigation while I'm here." She said lightly before moving away.

"No. Good for you." The Doctor murmured "Good for you. Oh, good for you, Sarah Jane Smith."

"What?" Clara sapped irritably "Who is she?"

"Hmm?" the Doctor said as he moved away, not listening to her at all. Clara huffed and stormed away, leaving him to figure out what he did wrong.

She was in a better mood when they snuck into the school that night. The Doctor went off to inspect Finch's office and she went off to snoop around the kitchens and the maths department. She tried the kitchens first where she found this strange oil. It smelt suspiciously like the chips so she took a sample of it before heading up to the maths department. There she found a cupboard full of vacuum packed rats so she took one and put it in the pocket of her black leather jacket. Then she jogged back to the Doctor feeling very accomplished only to have her good mood evaporate when she saw that reporter woman with the Doctor.

"Oh you" she said bitterly. The Doctor apparently didn't notice her rudeness

"Clara, Sarah Jane. Sarah Jane, Clara" he said, breathless and excited.

"Hi. Nice to meet you." Sarah Jane said sarcastically before turning to the Doctor and saying hottly "You can tell you're getting older. Your assistants are getting younger."

"Assistant?" Clara asked, thoroughly offended. Sarah Jane raised her eyebrows and the Doctor thought it wise not to say _she's older then she looks. _

"What did you find?" he asked instead. Clara pulled two things out of her pocket.

"Oil and vacuum packed rat!" she announced, shoving them into his hands without looking at him.

"Nice" he smiled at her and she softened slightly. Of course this woman had to ruin it.

"What's special about rats?" she asked.

"I dunno," the Doctor said, examining it closely "Let's go check Mr Finch's office."

As they walked Clara and Sarah Jane pushed in front of him. "So who exactly are you?" Clara asked bluntly.

"Sarah Jane Smith. I used to travel with the Doctor." She replied like that should settle the matter.

"Really? He's never mentioned you." Clara said slightly smugly, even though it didn't change anything in her mind.

"Oh, I must've done. Sarah Jane. Mention her all the time." The Doctor said bemused, although his case wasn't very convincing.

"Not since I've been with you" Clara said, not bothering to point out that she'd only been with him a few months.

"What, not even once? He didn't mention me even once?" Sarah Jane asked in disbelief. Thankfully for the Doctor they'd reached Finch's office and he could sonic the lock open. They slowly eased the door open and looked up at the ceiling where a group of large, pink, leathery bat creatures hung upside down.

"Those rats are food" Clara concluded softly. The Doctor nodded, then shut the door quietly before the three of them raced from the school. Out in the car park Sarah asked "Were those the teachers?"

The Doctor nodded and turned to Clara asking "When Finch arrived, he brought with him what?"

"Seven new teachers, four dinner ladies and a nurse. Thirteen. Thirteen big bat people." Clara said promptly "Now what?"

"To the TARDIS!" the Doctor announced, starting back towards the school "I've got to analyse that oil from the kitchen."

"I might be able to help you there. I've got something to show you." Sarah Jane said, her eyes alight with excitement. She led them over to a very battered car and opened the boot to reveal an even more battered metal dog. Clara thought it looked like trash at first but the Doctor seemed delighted.

"K9!" he cried "Clara Oswald, allow me to introduce K9. Well, K9 Mark Three to be precise."

Clara wrinkled her nose and leaned in closer asking "Why does he look so… disco?"

"Oi! Listen, in the year five thousand, this was cutting edge. What's happened to him?" he asked, looking to Sarah Jane who was apparently as confused as him.

"Oh, one day, he just, nothing." She said helpfully.

"Well, didn't you try and get him repaired?"

"Well, it's not like getting parts for a Mini Metro" Sarah Jane said defensively "Beside, the technology inside him could rewrite human science. I couldn't show him to anyone."

"Ooh, what's the nasty lady done to you, eh?" the Doctor asked in a silly voice, scratching the tin as if it were a real dog.

"Can we go inside, we're busy" Clara moaned, getting quite sick of this display. The Doctor agreed to go to a nearby coffee shop but he took K9 in with him. Clara went up to the counter to get a coffee so Sarah Jane and the Doctor sat at a table with K9 between them while the Doctor attempted to mend him.

"I thought of you on Christmas Day. This Christmas just gone? Great big spaceship overhead. I thought, oh yeah, bet he's up there." Sarah Jane said softly as the Doctor soniced the wires.

"Right on top of it, yeah." The Doctor said, hardly looking up.

"And Clara?" Sarah Jane asked lightly, trying not to let on how bothered she was by the girl. The Doctor seemed to freeze at this question.

"No" he said finally "I- I met her a few days later. Well, few days for her, few years for me"

"Oh" was all Sarah Jane said. It seemed like she was going to drop it before she asked "Are you sure?"

"What do you mean? Of course I'm sure" the Doctor wasn't sure whether to laugh or frown.

"Well, I can't help feel like I know her" she said, a distant look in her eye. "I'm sure I've seen her before, but not in a long time…" she trailed off and then another thought struck her "Did I do something wrong, because you never came back for me. You just dumped me."

"I told you. I was called back home and in those days humans weren't allowed." The Doctor said vaguely, his mind on how he also thought he saw Clara before he met her.

"I waited for you. I missed you." Sarah Jane said shortly.

"Oh, you didn't need me. You were getting on with your life." He said like that was far more important than trips across the universe.

"You were my life." Was all she said. A silence followed until she finally sighed and said "You know what the most difficult thing was? Coping with what happens next, or with what doesn't happen next. You took me to the furthest reaches of the galaxy, you showed me supernovas, intergalactic battles, and then you just dropped me back on Earth. How could anything compare to that?"

"All those things you saw, do you want me to apologise for that?" he asked her in confusion.

"No, but we get a taste of that splendour and then we have to go back." She explained, but she knew he could never really understand.

"Look at you, you're investigating. You found that school. You're doing what we always did." He smiled, unimaginably proud.

"You could have come back." She told him.

"I couldn't." he said firmly.

"Why not?" she demanded, but she had travelled with him long enough to know he wouldn't answer her. He just continued working on K9. "It wasn't Croydon." She eventually said. When he looked at her in confusion she explained "Where you dropped me off, that wasn't Croydon."

"Where was it?"

"Aberdeen."

"Right. That's next to Croydon, isn't it?" he asked her, almost hopeful. She just smiled and shook her head, and he knew he was somewhat forgiven. Then K9 sparked into life and he cried "Oh, hey. Now we're in business."

"Master." The dog said in a stiff, electric voice.

"He recognises me." The Doctor was obviously very pleased and Clara came over to see the tin dog in action.

"Affirmative." The dog replied. The doctor held his hand towards Clara, barely glancing at her.

"Clara, give us the oil." He said and she placed it hiss his hand, frowning at him and the dog. The Doctor smeared some on the end of a sort of probe sticking out of K9's head.

"Oil. Ex ex ex extract. Ana ana analysing." K9 said with some difficultly. After a few tense moments he said "Confirmation of analysis. Substance is Krillitane Oil."

"They're Krillitanes." The Doctor said, his eyes wide.

"Is that bad?" Clara asked, hating being out of the loop.

"Very. Think of how bad things could possibly be, and add another suitcase full of bad." The Doctor said in all seriousness.

"And what are Krillitanes?" Sarah Jane asked.

"They're a composite race." The Doctor sighed at haaving to explain. He looked at Clara and said "Just like your culture is a mixture of traditions from all sorts of countries, people you've invaded or have been invaded by. You've got bits of Viking, bits of France, bits of whatever. The Krillitanes are the same. An amalgam of the races they've conquered. But they take physical aspects as well. They cherry pick the best bits from the people they destroy. That's why I didn't recognise them. The last time I saw Krillitanes, they looked just like us except they had really long necks."

"They want the children" Clara realised "they need the children" the Doctor nodded and ran a hand through his hair.

* * *

The next morning the three of them walked into school with the kids, the Doctor giving instructions.

"Clara and Sarah, you go to the Maths room. Crack open those computers, I need to see the hardware inside. Here, you might need this." He pulled out the sonic screwdriver and Clara held out her hand for it, only he gave it to Sarah Jane.

"What're you going to do?" she asked bitterly.

"It's time I had a word with Mister Finch." The Doctor said, before striding away to the school. Clara and Sarah Jane followed, neither saying a word as they headed to the computer lab. When they got there Clara sat down on the table and became very interested in her fingernails while Sarah knelt beside the monitor and attempted to get it working.

"It's not working." She complained after the sixteenth try and whacking it against her hand. Clara jumped down from the desk and plucked it out her hand without a word. She didn't even look, only pressed a button and pointed it towards the computer. It started up straight away and she knelt down, needing to see it for the next bit.

"Who are you?" Sarah Jane asked "And what did I ever do to you? Are you jealous? Because trust me I have no interest in picking up where we left off"

Clara sighed and said nothing, for a while Sarah Jane thought she wasn't going to answer. In all honesty Clara wasn't sure of the answer.

"I don't have any objection to other companions of his. I wouldn't want him to ever be alone" she said slowly, standing up as she spoke. "But yes, I am jealous. Not nessacarily because he likes you and all that, but…. I dunno" Clara sighed and held a hand to her temple.

"Right" Sarah Jane said with a nod. The explanation hadn't been all that helpful but she decided it was better than nothing. They didn't speak anymore and the Doctor came in a while later and started to do a better job of finding out what was in the hard drives.

* * *

Clara retired to her room after another exciting near death experience which involved the Doctor blowing up the school and quite effectively killing the Krillitane and K9. The Doctor was waiting for Sarah Jane, which Clara had decided she didn't want to hang around for.

She was annoyed. Really annoyed and confused.

Not by the fact she felt sorrow at the death of a tin dog she'd known for five minutes.

Not by the fact she had somewhat started to figure out the Skasis Paradigm before she felt her head start to ache.

No, she was bothered by the fact she was jealous of Sarah Jane Smith.

She wasn't jealous of the fact she was once the Doctor's companion, he needed them or she didn't know where he'd been. No it was more like she was bothered that she had become a companion. That the Doctor had chosen take her along. Not because of whom she was, but just that he simply had. It seemed ridiculous.

Clara sighed and lay down on the bed, rubbing her temples. She'd always suffered from migraines when she was younger. Her mum had tried everything, but nothing could help. She just waited for them to pass.

It wasn't fair really. She never got sick; the headaches were the worst thing she'd ever come down with and even those were rare. Now traveling with the Doctor, no matter how exhilarating or brilliant it was she often got the feeling she had watched it happen before. But that was impossible; she was experiencing it so she couldn't have done it before. Then whenever she tried to figure it out, think it through she'd get a headache.

Clara sighed. There had been points in her life that she thought nothing made sense, but there was always a plausible explanation. Now that she was traveling with the Doctor, she wasn't sure what was what though.

She went back to the console room a while later but stopped outside when she heard voices.

"You could come with us" the Doctor said and Clara groaned inwardly. She thought she'd go mad having to put up with the constant headache that came with trying to figure out why she hated Sarah Jane.

"No" Sarah Jane answered after a while "I can't do this anymore. I have to get on with my life. Besides…" she paused "You already have her."

The Doctor didn't say anything for a moment. Then finally he said softly "Yeah, I do."

"She's special, hold onto her" Sarah Jane advised with a smile in her voice. Clara felt her head spin with confusion. She didn't think Sarah Jane liked her anymore then she did her. The Doctor seemed to be thinking along the same lines.

"Hmm, I know I'm just surprised you… I mean you and her…" he was struggling now but Sarah Jane only laughed.

"I don't have to like her to see the way she looks at you" Sarah Jane said "Or the way you look at her. How long have you known her?"

"Only a few months" the Doctor said, but Clara knew he wouldn't meet her eyes on that one. He was as confused as her on the knowing each other one. When they met and how long they had known each other sometimes seemed like two completely different things.

"Well, keep going. Some things are worth getting your heart broken over" Sarah Jane said and Clara shivered slightly. It was almost as if she knew she was listening, because she couldn't see anyway that sentence would apply to the Doctor.

"I will, I'm sorry" the Doctor said sincerely "I don't know what it was. She's usually so kind, so warm"

"I'm sure she is" Sarah Jane said.

"You see, I had this girl with me… Rose… that was her name" Clara heard the stab in the Doctors voice. "I thought when she left me I'd never want anyone else or even feel…" he didn't finish but Clara knew what he meant. It was clear in his eyes every day. She's never considered how long she would travel with him. But it was his next words that first made her consider staying forever. "But then I met Clara"

**Please Review!**


	6. Deep Breath Clara

**Allons-y Impossible Girl**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor who**

Chapter 6

Clara stepped out the TARDIS in a large silver room of what she was guessing was a spaceship. The Doctor followed her out and immediately wondered off in the direction of the console while she looked around her. The place was silent and kinda trashed.

"Spaceship?" she asked and when no reply came she just went with that "Where is everyone?"

"Nah, nothing here. Well, nothing dangerous. Well, not that dangerous. You know what, I'll just have a quick scan, in case there's anything dangerous." The Doctor said, putting on his glasses and tapping away at the console.

"Future I'm guessing, how far out?" Clara asked in excitement, thinking no matter where they went she could never get over this.

"About three thousand years into your future, give or take." The Doctor said. He located the light switch and flipped it and revealed parts of the ceiling to show the stars. "Fifty first century. Diagmar Cluster"

"It's beautiful" Clara said, only looking away when her neck started to hurt. The Doctor smiled at her before looking over the ruined console.

"Dear me, had some cowboys in here. Got a ton of repair work going on." He began to look over the data "Now that's odd. Look at that. All the warp engines are going. Full capacity. There's enough power running through this ship to punch a hole in the universe, but we're not moving. So where's all that power going?" he took the glasses off and looked around him.

"The crew?" Clara asked, looking at the screen "No life readings on board."

"Very odd" the Doctor sniffed theatrically "Can you smell that?"

"Yeah, cooking" she was about to shrug it off before she realised the obvious. "But who…"

"Good question" the Doctor said, although it wasn't really. He began to flip switches until a door opened to reveal a small room containing a blazing fire within an ornate fireplace. A broken clock stood on the mantle and the wall behind it was panelled.

"What the…" Clara stepped towards it and the Doctor raced ahead of her.

"Well, there's something you don't see in your average spaceship." He mused as he checked it over "Eighteenth century. French. Nice mantle. Not a hologram. It's not even a reproduction. This actually is an eighteenth century French fireplace. Double sided. There's another room through there."

At this Clara knelt down and peered through the fire while the Doctor inspected the mantle. On the other side of the flames knelt a young girl with long blonde hair wearing a white nightgown.

"Hello" Clara said and the Doctor immediately crouched beside her upon noticing she was speaking to someone.

"Hello" the little girl said steadily, remarkably calm about having two complete strangers looking through her fireplace.

"What's your name?" Clara asked with a comforting smile she reserved for her new nannying jobs.

"Reinette" the little girl answered.

"Lovely name" Clara said. Reinette looked pleased, but Clara figured the Doctor better take over.

"Can you tell me where you are at the moment?" the Doctor asked, trying to see further into the room.

"In my bedroom." Reinette replied, almost as if she were afraid of getting the answer wrong. The Doctor tried to move it along.

"And where's your bedroom? Where do you live, Reinette?" he asked.

"Paris, of course." Reinette laughed. Clara smirked.

"Yeah, Paris duh Doctor" she said, raising her eyebrows at him cheekily.

"Paris, right!" the Doctor grinned and rolled his eyes at Clara. There was an awkward silence which in the end the little girl broke.

"Monsieur, what are you doing in my fireplace?" she asked, as if wondering she really wanted know the answer.

"Oh, it's just a routine fire check." The Doctor said vaguely before getting back on topic "Can you tell me what year it is?"

"Of course I can. Seventeen hundred and twenty seven." Reinette smiled.

"Right, lovely. One of my favourites. August is rubbish though. Stay indoors." Clara elbowed him hard for revealing things about the future "Okay, that's all for now. Thanks for your help. Hope you enjoy the rest of the fire. Night, night." The Doctor grinned and helped Clara to her feet.

"Goodnight Monsieur." Reinette called. Once they were sure she couldn't hear them anymore Clara turned to the Doctor.

"You said this ship was generating enough power to punch a hole in the universe" Clara said slowly. The Doctor grinned, very pleased she'd figured it out without him. "I'm guessing that's the hole then"

"Yup" the Doctor said, popping the p. "Must be a spatio-temporal hyperlink." He said.

"That is…?" Clara prompted and he frowned.

"No idea. Just made it up. Didn't want to say magic door." He confessed. Clara grinned and watched as he inspected the fireplace further.

"Gotcha!" he suddenly yelled, and the fireplace began to rotate so he disappeared into the wall leaving Clara on the ship.

A fifteen minutes later she got the shock of her life as the Doctor came spinning back into the room with a large clown faced sort of person. It had a very dangerous looking attachment to his hand that was stuck in the mantle. The Doctor grabbed a large silver gun off the wall and fired the icy substance all over the clown face.

"What in Rassilons name is that?" was the first thing that came out of Clara's mouth once she had recovered from the initial shock. Instead of answering her question, or even inspecting this thing he whirled around and stared at her as if she had just said the most astounding thing possible. "What?"

"What did you just say?" he asked in a hushed voice. Clara raised her eyebrows.

"I dunno" she shrugged and crossed her arms "It's just a thing, people say!"

"No not people, time-lords" he said bluntly, coming up right next to her and staring into her eyes.

"Ok… well maybe I heard you say it?" Clara said, stepping away.

"No…" the Doctor looked truly confused, before he shrugged and turned back to the job in hand.

Clara backed away from the human heart in horror. Humans, they were using human parts to power this ship. She collapsed to the floor, fighting nausea and trembling. _I've seen this before!_ The minute the thought crossed her mind her head began to ache as if it were trying to crack open.

_Well now, it's more a sort of automated organ collection station for the unwary diner. Sweeney Todd without the pies. _

_So where are we now?_

_Factually? An ancient spaceship, probably buried for centuries. Functionally? A larder._

An image of a silver haired man with a Scottish accent flashed in front of her eyes. She gasped and her head slammed against the wall. It came again.

_It would need a constant supply of spare parts. You can tan skin, but organs rot. Some of that metalwork looks Roman. Wonder how long it's been around, how much of the original is even left? The eyeballs look very fresh, though. _

"Stop it please, stop it" Clara sobbed, begging her own head as the eyeball camera loomed down on her. These were her memories, but she didn't know them, and it was burning her mind up.

_Well, if they're harvesting organs, a dinosaur would have some great stuff._

Clara slammed her head back again.

_Five foot one and crying. You never stood a chance._

With desperate strength, Clara's head collided heavily with the metal and a strange sense of relief swept over her as the blood flowed beneath her hair. She felt consciousness slipping, and closed her eyes. As she fell into blackness, her own voice filled her mind.

"I don't know. But I know where he will be. Where he will always be. If the Doctor is still the Doctor, he will have my back."

**Bit shorter this time but I don't feel Clara would've had a very big part to play in Girl in the Fireplace since its mainly a Doctor plot. Please Review!**


	7. Rise of the Cybermen

**Allons-y Impossible Girl**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who**

Chapter 7

Clara slid her hips into her ripped black skinny jeans and did up the buttons. She stared at herself this way and that in the full length mirror hung on the back of her bedroom door. The tight black t-shirt was the same one she'd been wearing the night she stepped aboard the TARDIS, with sleeves that stopped just above her elbows and a plunging neckline. She could still see all the little things wrong with her, the too prominent collarbones, weird nose, the slightly too wide face. Her hair was loose and hanging normally past her shoulder blades, only a little longer then it had been a few months ago.

So what was it?

No matter what light she stood in, which angle she looked from, there was something considerably different about the way she looked that morning. Maybe it had been there for a while, she didn't really take time to look in the mirror these days, but she didn't look like the Clara Oswald who had worked in a bar in London.

It was stupid, ridiculous, but Clara was sure she looked… brighter. More alive. Realer.

But that was dumb. What had that made her before, not real? She had a life; it was there to look at. However since the Doctor, the traveling had become the only thing real in her life. Everything she left behind was fading, like it had never really been proper in the first place.

Peering closer, her intense gaze loocked with her own. Her eyes were brown. They had always been brown. Everyday she had lived with the garunteed knowlage her eyes were brown. So why did they look golden?

The TARDIS lurched.

Even if she had been wearing flats there was no way she could have stayed on her feet as she was thrown into the corridor and everything began to shake and spin. Thankfully she had enough sense to brace herself against the wall before they came to a very sudden stop and a load of gas masks dropped from the ceiling.

"Clara!" the Doctor's panicked voice came from the console room so she got to her feet and stumbled towards him. The console room was dark, and she could just make out his silhouette in the dim light.

"What was that?" she asked, as he hugged her in relief. The Doctor ran a hand through his hair and looked at the console.

"She's dead. The TARDIS is dead." He said in a soft voice. "She's perished. The last TARDIS in the universe. Extinct."

Clara didn't know what to say, because although she never had any reason to doubt the Doctors word she was refusing to believe it was dead. She walked towards the doors with her hand outstretched.

"There's nothing out there" he told her, but she ignored him and opened it anyway. Daylight flooded inside and Clara stepped out onto the embankment of London's river Thames.

"London, England, Earth." She said as she stepped out of the TARDIS, the Doctor following. A newspaper lay to one side with the date printed on it. "February 1st, the year you met me. Only…" she trailed off as she looked up at the sky "Zeppelins?"

"Must be a parallel universe" the Doctor decided "That's why the TARDIS can't recharge, this is the wrong universe. Like putting diesel in a petrol engine."

"Right" Clara nodded, thinking she understood. She noticed a large poster a few feet away with the name Pete Tyler on it. "Who's Pete Tyler?" she asked, although she wasn't sure the Doctor would know.

"You what?" he looked down at her in shock. She nodded towards the poster and relief flooded through him. "Hmm, parallel universe where Rose's dad never died"

"Who's Rose?" Clara asked, but the Doctor just went back into the TARDIS, leaving her alone.

She pulled her phone from her pocket and looked at the message. It was from something called the Cybus network saying - Welcome! Free Trial Period.

She got onto the news networks and a journalist began to speak. "And it's good news for Great Britain as John Lumic returns to the country of his birth. Mister Lumic, the inventor of high content metal, has denied allegations of ill health."

Another man spoke, one Clara didn't recognise from her own world. "We're all flesh and blood, but the brain is what makes us human. And my mind is more creative than ever."

The Newsreader spoke again, saying "With shares in Cybus Industries doubling in price, Mister Lumic is –" a Zeppelin passed overhead, the noise from its rotors blocking out the next words. "In other news, the Torchwood Institute published a study claiming that" Clara lost interest and switched it off.

She loaded up the internet and googled Pete Tyler. He was a rich, successful man married to a woman called Jackie Tyler. She was about to find out why he was successful when the Doctor ran out the TARDIS with a glowing thing in his hand.

**"**I fixed it. Twenty four hours, then we're flying back to reality!" he announced in excitement. Clara grinned.

"That's awesome. Hey look, my phone connected There's this Cybus Network. It gave me Internet access."

"If your family-" Clara swiftly cut his concerns short.

"No, this Mr. Tyler. He's weird, I wanna find out why. You coming?"

The walked into London, the Doctor telling Clara about who Rose was, feeling he owed her that. She said nothing the whole time and was silent when he'd finished.

"She doesn't exist. In this world, just so you know" she said shortly after a while. He nodded, feeling wise about not saying anything. There was a strange beeping noise and suddenly everyone stopped, even the policemen.

"Okay…What're they all doing?" Clara asked, slightly creeped out.

"They've stopped." The Doctor stated the obvious. Everyone around them had strange metallic ear pods attached that were flashing.

"It's the earpieces. Like Bluetooth attachments, but everyone's connected together." The Doctor realised as Clara noticed it on her phone.

"It's on my phone. It's automatic, look. It's downloading. Is this what they're all getting? News, international news, sports, weather." The words flashed across her screen.

"They get it direct. Downloaded right into their heads." The Doctor said . Clara pulled a face as more went across the screen. "Everyone shares the same information. A daily download published by Cybus Industries."

The word Joke was on Clara's phone and everyone laughed. Then they all began to go around as if nothing had happened.

"You lot, you're obsessed. You'd do anything for the latest upgrade." The Doctor moaned at the people around them. "It's not so far off your world. This place is only parallel. Oh, look at that. Cybus Industries, owners of just about every company in Britain, including Vitex. Mister Pete Tyler's very well connected. Oh, okay. I give up. Let's go and see him."

They wound up as kitchen staff at Jackie Tyler's 40th birthday party. Clara was getting glares from the rest of the catering staff because she refused to where the dress and apron, serving champagne in her ripped jeans. No one seemed to pay her much attention. She joined the Doctor after fifteen minutes, her lipstick smudged.

"Ok, so according to Felix that man over there is-" she got no further as the Doctors ssharp vision focused on her mouth and jelousy flashed aacross his eyes.

"Who's Felix?"

"That guy over there" Clara smirked, avoiding his question "Is the President of Great Britain. No PM"

"Hmm, interesting. Did you have to wear that?" he frowned at her outfit but then Pete Tyler stood on the stairs and called them all to attention.

"Excuse me! Thank you very much. Thank you if I could just have your attention, please? I'd just like to say thank you to you all, for coming on this, this very special occasion. My wife's thirty ninth." There was an outbreak of laughter at this. "Trust me on this. And so, without any further ado, here she is, the birthday girl. My lovely wife, Jackie Tyler."

Jackie came down the stairs in skin tight black dress to general applause. "Now, I'm not giving a speech. That's what my parties are famous for. No work, no politics, just a few good mates and plenty of black market whisky. Pardon me, Mister President. So, yeah, get on with it. Enjoy, enjoy. Rose! There's my little girl! Come to mummy, come to mummy!" a small furry lap dog ran up to her and she picked her up. "Yes, good girl! Good girl, aren't you?"

Clara collapsed into laughter and even the Doctor had to join in.

Later on the Doctor wondered off to find a computer while Clara leaned against the back wall. She was pretty bored, but her head snapped to attention when someone said "Ah, Mr President, might I introduce Christopher Oswald?"

There, talking to the President was her father. He looked the same way he had throughout her childhood, handsome face and brown hair and eyes. Next to him stood her mother, who was introduced as Diane Oswald. Clara felt her heart break.

She remembered her whole life with the two people stood a few feet away. Baking soufflés with her mum, learning about computers with her dad, day trips to Brighton, every sick day, and every weekend. Running into her dads arms at the end of the day when he came from work. The way her mum kissed her when she was proud of her.

Then her dad said something that hit her like a tank. "This is our daughter, Georgia Oswald"

The girl stood between her parents looked nothing like Clara. Clara had known her whole life she didn't look like her parents, the colouring was just similar. Georgia was tanned, had her mother's face, her father's nose, the family's smile, her grandmother's ears and _blonde _hair. Her brown eyes were a more hazel colour rather than Clara's own chocolate. This girl was so obviously Clara's parent's daughter, and looking at it like this, Clara could see she had never looked like anyone in her family.

_"__This doesn't make any sense" Mark frowned as she showed him the results "Your mum wouldn't keep this from you, there must be a mistake"_

_"__No mistake. I did it sixteen times. The results are always the same" Clara chewed the hangnail on her thumb. This wasn't happening. Stuff like this didn't happen!_

Clara closed her eyes as she remembered that day in her high school biology lab. And what had followed.

_"__How could you keep this from me!" Clara screamed at her parents, tears running over her cheeks. Both sat at the dining room table looking truly astonished._

_"__Clara darling, there must be a mistake!" her mum sobbed "I swear to you, this isn't real!"_

_"__STOP LYING!" _

She remembered the fights, the tests and the constant insistence that what was stood in front of them was not true.

_"__Baby, don't do this, we love you so much, you can't do this!" her dad begged her as she dragged the suitcase down the stairs. She'd never seen her dad cry before, but he looked like he was about to._

_"__If you really love me, you won't try and find me" Clara said steadily before she slammed the door shut and posted the keys through the letterbox._

No one had followed. She was glad.

_"__I need a job" she told the guy behind the bar "Whatever it takes"_

_"__How old are you?"_

_"__Older then I look" Clara lied. "Please, I'm out of school and I'm desperate"_

_"__What's your name?" he asked her. She sighed and thought for a moment._

_"__Oswin. Oswin Oswald." There was no going back now, and that was how she liked it._

**Please Review!**


	8. Falling Slowly

**Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who**

Chapter 8

"Who were they?" the Doctor asked Clara once they were safe in their own universe. It had been a rather eventful trip ending in Clara hacking the cyber network to stop the Cybermen and Lumic. She was exhausted after a lot of running and watching a lot of innocent people die, but the Doctor wanted to understand before she went to bed.

"Who?" Clara asked, brow furrowed in confusion.

"That family. A man, a woman and a girl, around your age, who got deleted. You looked… well just the way you acted. As if you couldn't decide whether or not you should help them." He elaborated, folding him arms as Clara fell into the chair beside him and drew her knees to her chest.

She was quiet for some time. "You said my family in this world… they weren't really my family"

"No…" the Doctor said "Saving them in that world would have been completely different to saving them in yours. They wouldn't have known you, if you didn't exist and you couldn't save your parents in your own world. Rose stopped her dad's death once and the results were disastrous" he explained. It was strange how casually he mentioned rose, and how he didn't feel that stab.

"They're not dead." Clara said with an empty laugh. "My parents are alive and well"

"You told me you didn't have any family" the Doctor said, thinking back to the night he met her.

"I don't. I walked out on them when I was 16 and never looked back. I've been working in a bar ever since" Clara told him.

"Why'd you walk out?"

"They lied to me. And when I found out they didn't have the decency to admit what they'd done" Clara said bitterly, trying to expel the pain from her voice.

"All parents lie to their children" the Doctor said.

"I'm not talking small scale. They lied about everything. My whole life!" Clara said fiercely, her eyes burning in fury. Then it was gone. "I was always clever. So clever. Too clever. When I was 16, my friend Mark got it in his head that he was an alien. Don't ask me why. So we both collected samples of DNA from our parents and compared them to our own. Just for fun. Neither of us thought we'd find anything."

"But you did?" the Doctor guessed.

"Me and my mum and dad shared no DNA whatsoever. There was no way we were even distantly related. I did it again and again but it was always the same. So I took the results home and demanded they tell me everything, where I came from. Only they insisted my mum carried and gave birth to me even though the truth was right there. In the end I gave up and cleared out of there. I hadn't seen them until that party. That girl with them? That was their daughter. She looked like them, she had the name of my dad's younger sister, the name they had originally planned to give me. She was me, only _right_." Tears slid down her cheeks so all the Doctor did was pull her close. He rested his chin on the top of her head.

"You're not wrong. You will never, ever be wrong impossible girl. Not so long as I'm around." He said with fierce determination. She looked up at him, and he looked down at her.

"Allons-y?" she whispered and snapped him from his daydream.

"Allons-y!" he grinned and stepped away to fly the TARDIS.

* * *

_Where am I? Where am I? I don't know where I am?_

**Something's wrong!**

_Have to save the Doctor, I have to save the Doctor!_

**The timeline! It's changing. Everything's going wrong. It can't be like this.**

_Allons-y!_

_Geronimo!_

**Stop, wherever you are, whatever you are you have to stop. You're doing it wrong. You can't stay like this! You can't stay with him!**

_You're not wrong, you will never be wrong!_

**It doesn't matter how you feel, what you want. You have to save him and you're screwing it up. Please just listen! **

_You could come with me_

**No! This isn't how it happens. Stop you have to stop!**

Clara sat bolt upright, gasping as much oxygen into her lungs as possible. Images, lives, so many Doctors and so many Claras flashed across her mind and her eyes blazed gold. Energy, power and knowledge pushed itself to the very corners of her mind and for one clear moment, everything made sense. Then the force knocked her unconscious, and the next morning she didn't remember anything.

* * *

"Where do you want to go today?" the Doctor grinned as she entered the console room covered in flower.

"Anywhere to take my mind of faceless monsters, TV's that eat people and burnt soufflés." Clara announced.

"Lots of places I can think of" he told her "Give me somewhere specific!"

"Oh I dunno" Clara rolled her eyes. "Let's go somewhere beautiful. With different coloured plants and a different sky and no weird aliens trying to kill us in sight!"

"Let's ask the TARDIS!" the Doctor shouted, running around the console. "An alien planet that's beautiful"

"Coolness" Clara smiled. She gripped the railing as they rocked through space and time before finally coming to a stop. "Where are we?"

"No idea!" the Doctor said cheerfully, pulling on his coat and opening the door. Clara stepped outside with her eyes closed. It was quite cold, but she wasn't too bothered. She slowly opened her eyes.

They were stood by a large lake. The water was smooth and calm, perfectly clear so you could see the shining sapphire rock at the bottom. Clara's healed brown ankle boot was stood on white frosted grass as snow fell slowly around her. She looked up and gasped at the sky. Thousands of stars, pink, blue, white, amber, purple and a hundred other colours shone down from above. They lit the entire area, reflecting in the lake and Clara's eyes.

"Oh my god" she whispered, turning around to get a good look at everything. "This is incredible!"

"Yeah it is" the Doctor murmured. He took her hand in his and began to walk towards the lake. Neither said anything for a while, admiring the dazzling sky. After a while the Doctor stopped looking at the stars and at her face. The light made her pale skin glow and her eyes shine. He noticed the curve in her lips as she smiled, the cute way her nose sloped and savoured the soft feel of her hand in his. She was beautiful, not in the way Rose had been, just in her own way.

Clara looked round to notice him staring. "What?" she demanded, looking down at her clothes hoping to find something there.

"Nothing…" the Doctor grinned. "It's just… well… beautiful!"

"I know right!" Clara's smile lit up her entire face "Amazing!"

He might have said he meant her, not the sky. That it was dull in comparison. That despite how it should be, despite the promises he made himself, despite Rose, he was falling for her slowly. But he was the Doctor, and he wasn't like that. Humans did feelings, affection. And he most certainly wasn't human. He was a timelord.

Clara was human. She'd age. They didn't mix, no matter what his feelings. So he should just enjoy his time with her without complicating it.

He couldn't explain the feeling that said he would never be without his Impossible Girl.

**Please Review!**


	9. Even if it means you die

**Allons-y Impossible Girl**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who**

Chapter 9

Clara felt extremely groggy. Her eyes fluttered open slowly and she stirred in the uncomfortable seat. Something tight restricted her waist and her head was cloudy. Muffled voices surrounded her and she tried to make sense of her surroundings. She tried to remember what had happened.

"Captain, I think we're going to have a problem passenger." Somebody next to her said, but his voice sounded distant.

"Keep an eye on her." Someone else said. Zach, Clara remembered. Then it all tumbled into her mind. The black hole, the Satan's pit! The Doctor! She was abandoning him to die, she had to save him. She had to save him!

"Wait. We're not-" she twisted in the seatbelt but she couldn't get free. Danny who was sat next to her tried to calm her down.

"It's all right, Clara. You're safe." He said soothingly.

Clara felt the energy course through her. "I can't leave him, please! I have to help him! You don't understand, I can't leave him, I have to save him!" she begged desperately. They all looked away, not wanting to say anything.

"And lift off! Whoo!" Zach said as the rocket began to soar away from the impossible planet. Clara felt the screaming sensation inside of her increase. In panic she grabbed a gun lying nearby and pointed it at Zach.

"Take me back down now!" she said slowly through gritted teeth.

"Or what?" Zach asked her not looking at her. No one could.

"Or I _will _shoot you." Clara said without a shred of doubt in her mind. The crew glanced uneasily at her and had to do a double take as her eyes blazed gold.

"Oh my god!" Danny murmured, trying to move as far away as he could from her "What happened to you?"

Zach seemed pretty shaken too, but was more focused on the gun pointed at him. "Would you really shoot us, though? Would you really? Is that what your Doctor would want?"

"Trust me; you do not want to underestimate how far I will go to save him. Because me, this world, this universe would be nothing without him! I have to-" what she had to do, they never found out because she suddenly stopped and slumped in her seat going shockingly white and closing her eyes. Her breathing became shallow and she struggled to speak.

"Sorry, but it's too late anyway. Take a look outside. We can't turn back. This is what the Doctor would have wanted. Isn't that right?" Zach said, thinking she'd finally accepted they couldn't do anything.

"Um Zach, she's boiling up" Danny said in concern, his fingers scorched against Clara's white hot skin. He grabbed her wrist and tried to locate a pulse. "Her heart rate's falling!"

"What are you talking about?"

"She's dying!" Danny said in astonishment "Everything- all her life signs are failing!"

"How? What caused it? Keep her awake!" Zach ordered as he set the coordinates to planet earth.

"I can't do anything! I have no supplies. If she gets worse at this rate she'll be dead in ten minutes!" Danny shouted while Toby began to laugh. "What the hell is funny about any of this!"

"Just, we made it. We escaped. We actually did it." Toby said with another strange laugh.

"Please" Clara murmured, her heart beat getting slower and slower. "Please, I have to save him."

**I accept that you exist. I don't have to accept what you are, but you're physical existence, I'll give you that. I don't understand. I was expected down here. I was given a safe landing and air. You need me for something. What for? Have I got to, I don't know, beg an audience? Or is there a ritual? Some sort of incantation or summons or spell? All these things I don't believe in, are they real? Speak to me! Tell me! You won't talk. Or you can't talk. Oh, hold on, wait a minute, just let me. Oh! No. Yes! No. Think it through. You spoke before. I heard your voice. An intelligent voice. No, more than that. Brilliant. But, looking at you now, all I can see is Beast. The animal. Just the body. You're just the body, the physical form. What's happened to your mind, hmm? Where's it gone? Where's that intelligence? Oh, no. **

Clara breathed deeply, but it didn't help. Danny desperately held her as her muscles went limp and her pulse got fainter. She tried to think, but her head wasn't working. She had to save him that much was logical. She was his companion, she saw what he did and how fantastic he was, how much bigger he was to the universe. But there was more. It was like her body was shutting down in attempt to force her to turn around and do whatever it took to save his life. It scared her, because she was dying to make her save him.

**You're imprisoned, long time ago. Before the universe, after, sideways, in between, doesn't matter. The prison is perfect. It's absolute, it's eternal. Oh, yes! Open the prison, the gravity field collapses. This planet falls into the black hole! You escape, you die. Brilliant! But that's just the body. The body is trapped, that's all. The devil is an idea. In all those civilisations, just an idea. But an idea is hard to kill. An idea could escape. The mind. The mind of the great Beast. The mind can escape! Oh, but that's it! You didn't give me air, your jailers did. They set this up all those years ago! They need me alive, because if you're escaping, then I've got to stop you. If I destroy your prison, your body is destroyed. Your mind with it. … But then you're clever enough to use this whole system against me. If I destroy this planet, I destroy the gravity field. The rocket. The rocket loses protection and falls into the black hole. I have to sacrifice Clara. **

"I-, Why would it let us go?" for some reason this other thought had occurred to Clara.

"Oh shut up and get on with dying would you!" Toby snapped unkindly.

"Yeah that's great advice!" Danny yelled sarcastically in panic "Do not die Clara!"

**So, that's the trap. Or the test, or the final judgment, I don't know. But if I kill you, I kill her. Except that implies in this big grand scheme of Gods and Devils that she's just a victim. But I've seen a lot of this universe. I've seen fake gods and bad gods and demi-gods and would-be gods, and out of all that, out of that whole pantheon, if I believe in one thing, just one thing, I believe in her.**

The rocket began to shake violently. Clara closed her eyes and let the darkness descend on her brain.

**This is your freedom. Free to die. You're going into that black hole and I'm riding with you. **

She was briefly aware of Toby screaming about living forever and rage and anger. It was pissing her off but for some reason she was not unconscious yet, just sort of hanging on the edge. Toby was going to kill them all and she was useless, with her instincts screaming to save the Doctor. In the end it got too much for her, the not dying and the breathing fire so she gathered her remaining energy to open her eyes, grab the gun and prayed to god that firing a gun was as easy as it looked. She felt the last of her energy slip away as she raised the gun and shot the window. She heard the glass shatter and Danny reached over to unfasten Toby's seatbelt. She rested her head against the wall and waited for it all to end while the Captain and Danny talked about them doing everything they could. Then suddenly the shaking of the rocket stopped.

Clara shocked into life. Colour flushed into her cheeks, her heart jump started so suddenly it nearly caused it to stop and she gasped dramatically. Danny jumped as well, stunned by her immediate recovery.

"We're turning around!" Zach laughed out loud, not having noticed Clara yet.

"Sorry about the hijack, Captain. This is the good ship Tardis." The Doctor's voice surrounded the rocket and Clara shrieked with laughter.

"Yes!"

"I take it Miss Clara Oswald is on board!" the Doctor said with a smile in his voice. Zach turned around in astonishment.

"You're alive!" Danny said weakly "How are you alive? You should be dead!"

"Yeah, yeah" Clara said dismissivly "Doctor where are you?"

**"**I'm just towing you home. Gravity schmavity. My people practically invented black holes." The Doctor said hastily "What do you mean should be dead?"

"It's nothing, invented black holes?" Clara quickly changed the subject.

**"**Well, in fact, they did. In a couple of minutes, we'll be nice and safe. Oh, and Captain? Can we do a swap? Say, if you give me Clara Oswald, I'll give you Ida Scott? How about that?"

**"**She's alive!" Zach cried in relief.

"Yeah! Bit of oxygen starvation, but she should be all right. I couldn't save the Ood. I only had time for one trip. They went down with the planet." An uncomfortable silence fell over them for a while before finally he said "Ah! Entering clear space. End of the line. Mission Closed."

Clara was never more relieved to be wrapped in the Doctor's arms about an hour later. He lifted her clean off her feet and she buried her face in his chest, glad she was alive and even more glad he was. They said goodbye to the crew and the Doctor said "And the next time you get curious about something..." then he sighed "Oh, what's the point. You'll just go blundering in. The human race." He said fondly.

"But Doctor, what did you find down there? That creature, what was it?" Ida asked eagerly.

"I don't know. Never did decipher that writing. But that's good, Day I know everything? Might as well stop." The Doctor grinned, wrapping an arm around Clara's waist and pulling her close.

"What do you think it was, really?" she asked, looking up at him. His expression darkened for a moment.

"I think we beat it. That's good enough for me." He said seriously. Clara swallowed and said in a shaking voice,

"It said I would die. Die and die again. That's not possible and even if it was-" he squeezed her tight and shushed her.

"Then it lied. Right, onwards, upwards. Ida? See you again, maybe." He smiled, but his eyes showed his concern.

**"**I hope so."

"And thanks, boys!" Clara winked at Danny and Zach.

**"**Hang on though, Doctor." Ida called "You never really said. You two, who are you?" Clara and the Doctor grinned at each other.

"Oh, the stuff of legend." The Doctor grinned before closing the TARDIS doors and flying off into space.

**Please Review!**


	10. Dancing towards the Storm

**Allons-y Impossible Girl**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who**

Chapter 10

"Can we go dancing?"

Clara's question surprised the Doctor. He had expected her to request a day in bed considering they had just had a pretty eventful trip to the 2012 Olympics. She didn't really look tired, so of course he agreed.

He took her to the towers of Derillium. They always had fantastic dances there and he wanted the best for her. He piloted the TARDIS, did a triple scan for anything dangerous and changed into his tux. This all took a good half hour, but Clara still hadn't returned from the wardrobe. He waited another ten minutes, then another fifteen and after a further twenty he was about to go find her when she entered the console room.

It had been worth the wait. She wasn't one for dressing up much, although she did enjoy it briefly on trips to the past, so her dress was simple, but she still looked beautiful. The dress was black and strapless, tight around the chest and waist before flaring slightly. It was quite short for a formal dance, but she wouldn't have listened if he'd told her to go find something longer. Her heals were strappy and very high, also black and she'd curled her hair for the occasion. Then she'd pinned a single red rose in her hair to add some colour.

"Well?" she asked, eyes sparkling as she spun around.

The Doctor swallowed. "You look fantastic. Like my suit?"

"Yeah. I like the bow tie."

_Bow ties are cool! _Clara pushed the pounding thoughts away. Nothing was going to ruin her night.

They stepped out of the TARDIS arm in arm, to the sound of the most beautiful singing in the universe. A few feet away was an enormous dance floor lit by the stars and soft glowing lanterns, filled with people from all over the universe.

"Do you want to dance?" he asked her, almost shy. She took his hand and he led her to the floor, pulling her close and stepping slowly to the music. It was a classic waltz, and although Clara could never remember learning it, she was rather good at it.

"You're a good dancer" Clara commented after a few silent minutes "Where did you learn?"

"My home planet" the Doctor grinned, spinning her around. "Gallifrey."

"Planet of the time-lords" Clara smiled. "Do you go there a lot? Do you miss it?"

The Doctor's face fell slightly. "I can't ever go back. It's gone. And yes, I miss it" he looked so sad; Clara's heart broke at the sight.

"Where'd it go?" she asked lightly, hoping she wouldn't upset him further.

"It burned." The Doctor said emotionlessly.

"How?" she asked, eyes wide. He looked at them briefly. Wide, honest and brown. Then he glanced away, because she believed in him, and he didn't want her to think badly of him. "Tell me" she said gently.

"I can't." He whispered "This me, this man you see. I try and save everyone. I try and be a hero. But I'm not really"

"That doesn't matter" she said fiercely. She reached a hand up and gently brushed his cheek. "I don't care what you may have done. I have seen you do so many incredible things to save people. You could have killed the flesh in New New York, but you save them. You could have joined the Krillatain and saved people you love, but you saw what was right and didn't. You are an interesting man by no means, but I have seen what you do, who you try to be and that matters to me."

The Doctor listened to her little speech. She sounded like she meant it, and he trusted her, which was really not easy when it came to him. So he took a deep breath. "There was a war. Between my people and the Daleks, nasty things. It was the greatest war the universe had ever seen, and would have destroyed everything. Every galaxy. So I had to stop it. In the end there was nothing else to do. I burned the planet to stop the Daleks. My own people. I'm the last one left."

"Could you have done anything else?" Clara asked softly. He shook his head to answer her question and escape the memories of the time war. "Then there you go. A man left with an impossible decision. I don't blame you."

"How can you not. Billions of people dead because of me!"

"To save even more. I will never doubt you!" Clara hissed. The Doctor saw the truth in her eyes. "I want to know you. I want to know there is more to you then a mad man with a blue box running away. No matter what, at least I know where you came from and that you have a past to run away from."

Then he smirked at her. "What about you?"

"You know my past. Besides, I'm human. What is interesting about me?" Clara said dismissively, looking at her shoes. He lifted her chin and rolled his eyes.

"What's your favourite colour?" he asked with a smile. Clara laughed.

"Why would you want to know that?"

"I want to know everything about you" he said simply "Your likes and habits and all the things that make you so beautifully human."

"It's red"

"So why do you always wear black?" he asked with a frown. Clara laughed.

"I'm a barmaid. I wear black to work, and it sort of stuck" she explained. "What's yours then?"

"Blue" he said as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. Clara rolled her eyes at him.

Clara had never danced the way the two of them danced that night. She stepped and spun, held tightly in his arms and answering his pointless questions the whole time. It was an exhilarating feeling, looking into his eyes and really seeing his age, the things he had done, seen, gained and lost. There was sadness in his eyes, but that night she saw it drowned in the joy of dancing with her.

It would be easy, she realised. So easy to fall in love. With the way he smiled at her, the way he tried to save everyone. With his wonderful hair and those glasses he whipped on and off. With how he spoke at a hundred miles per hour and believed his screwdriver could fix everything. With all the things he showed her, and the wonderful way he said her name. Too easy.

Would he love her back? She would give her life for him, but would he do the same. He kept her safe, but would that always be enough? She would grow old, he would regenerate. She was a human, he was a freaking alien!

All these things should have stopped her.

But they didn't.

Clara Oswald fell in love. So when he asked her how long she'd stay, she promised him forever.

**Please Review!**


	11. Meeting Rose Tyler

**Allons-y Impossible Girl**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who**

Chapter 11

When Clara had been on earth, her phone had been her life. It was the latest modal, and she spent virtually all her money on it texting her mates from work and a casual string of boyfriends 24/7. When she started travelling with the Doctor he had soniced it so she could use it anywhere in the universe, but she hadn't because who would she call. She didn't have family to check in on, and why should she care about the things she and her friends talked about when she could go all over the universe. Her life back on earth seemed kind of pointless in comparison. She still occasionally texted her best friends Nina and Rory, but other than that the phone remained unused in the front pocket of her jeans.

So, it was a bit of a surprise when she came back to her room after taking a shower to find it vibrating like crazy.

"Hello" she said as she answered, not bothered to glance at the caller ID.

"Clara!" Nina's distinctive voice came down the line "I've been trying to reach you for over an hour!"

"Yeah… sorry" Clara said "What's up?"

"Where are you?" Nina demanded "Have you seen the ghosts? Don't you think they're wonderful?"

"What ghosts?" Clara sighed, thinking Nina was probably just getting another obsession with a TV show.

"You're probably still in bed aren't you?" Nina laughed "The ghosts. They're everywhere! I finally got to see Joey again."

"Right…" Clara frowned "All over earth?"

"Duh yeah!" Nina said.

"Ok, hey Neens, what's the date?" Clara asked, thinking she should go home and check on her friend since it sounded like she'd really lost it.

"How much did you have to drink last night? It's 12th July 2007. I gotta go, catch up with you later yeah?" Nina said very quickly before she hung up.

Clara sighed and headed out of the bedroom down the corridor to the console room. She slipped the phone into the pocket of her stonewashed skinny jeans as she went, hoping the Doctor didn't have a plan today.

"Ah there you are!" the Doctor cried as she climbed the steps "What do you want to do today?"

"I was wandering if we could go to earth, London, 12th July 2007" Clara said, chewing her lip "I just got a very interesting call from my friend Nina and I need to check on her"

"Alright then" the Doctor said, not wanting to deny her anything "Then can we go to the pyramids. Oo, Cleopatra!"

Clara laughed as he piloted the TARDIS. They came to a stop a moment later and the Doctor pulled on his coat, heading for the door. They stepped out into a children's playground on a bright and sunny day. Blocks of flats surrounded the area, and it looked like an ordinary estate.

"Where are we?" Clara asked, looking round her "I don't know this place"

"It's the Powel Estate" the Doctor said, rubbing the back of his neck "The TARDIS brought us here… but why?"

"Who lives here?" Clara asked, not entirely sure she wanted to hear the answer.

"Rose. Rose and her mum." The Doctor said, looking her right in the eye. She stared unblinking back. "What did your friend Nina say?"

"Ghosts. She said there were ghosts all over the world" Clara said "I thought she might just be getting too into some show or something. She's like that"

"Well, no harm in going and asking." the Doctor said "Let's go and see the Tylers!"

* * *

Rose was crashed out on the couch in front of the TV, waiting for Granddad Prentice's arrival. She was watching some broadcast about the ghosts starting to speak and wondering if she'd ever find her dad's ghost. She's looked everywhere for, but no luck.

Her life had gone back to normal when she had said goodbye to the Doctor that Christmas. At first she had lay in her bed crying, waiting for him to come back and beg her for a second chance. He hadn't. Mickey had joined a place called Torchwood, and had alerted the Doctor about a few strange things happening on earth. She could have gone to see him, helped him, but she hadn't. She knew she was being stupid, but she wanted him to come to her. Because she thought she meant more to him than that.

Eventually she moved on. She got another job, restarted her relationship with Mickey and six months after Christmas, and was not so hung up over him leaving her.

Then there was the knock on the door.

"I'll get it!" she called to her mum who was making tea in the kitchen, and walked out into the hallway. She wrenched the front door open and nearly fainted to see the Doctor, not her Doctor this new one, standing there looking sheepish.

"Hi" was all she managed to say.

"Hello!" the Doctor said cheerfully "I'm on a ghost hunt!"

"You what?"

"Ghosts" the Doctor said. Rose squirmed inside. Months she'd dreamed of this, him showing up on her doorstep out of the blue, but he was so different. Skinny and funny with sideburns and normal sized ears. "Have you seen any?"

"Um yeah, one's just about to arrive" Rose said "You can come in if you…"

"Rose who is it sweetheart?" her mum called from the kitchen. The Doctor cringed.

"Oh no, she'd not going to slap me again is she?" he asked, stepping into the flat.

"Any second now." Rose said nervously "My granddad Prentice, he passed away. His heart gave out." She explained.

"Then how can he come back?" the Doctor asked.

"Why don't you ask him yourself? Ten past. Here he comes." Rose said. That moment a strange, ethereal humanoid shape walked through the outside wall. The Doctor realised why they called them ghosts.

"Doctor, this is my granddad" Rose said. The Doctor took one look and could only stare. Rose felt a warm sensation fill her. Despite the months, he was here, beside her, ready to start on some _this should not be happening thing_. Then something made her stomach plummet.

From outside, the distinctive voice of a young girl called "Doctor!"

He was down the steps like a rocket, and she ran after him, more out of habit even though she knew what she might find would only upset her further. Out in the estate the ghosts walked around the way they always did, no one was bothered. The Doctor ran straight to the side of a young girl Rose recognised vaguely, and jealousy boiledin her blood. She was annoyingly pretty and freakishly short, especially next to him. She wore ripped jeans, high heels and a black suit jacket, her hair was twisted up at the back of her head but she did not come across as either smart or sophisticated despite her attire.

"Oh my god, Nina was right" she murmured, looking around her "They're everywhere!"

"They haven't got long. Midday shift only lasts a couple of minutes. They're about to fade." Rose said. The girl turned to look at her and gave her a vicious scowl which rose happily returned.

"What do you mean, shift?" the Doctor demanded, oblivious to the girl's exchange "Since when did ghosts have shifts? Since when did shifts have ghosts? What's going on?"

"No one's running or screaming or freaking out." The girl observed thoughtfully, looking at all the ordinary people.

"Why should we?" Rose sneered before looking at her watch "Here we go. Twelve minutes past."

Once the ghosts faded, the Doctor turned to Rose. "Your TV. We need to see your TV!"

* * *

Jackie Tyler had a few choice words for the Doctor, but she couldn't really be mad since Rose had told him to go away. She greeted Clara warmly enough, but stayed away out of loyalty to her daughter.

The Doctor and Clara sat on the floor, her leaning against him with his arm around her, eyes fixed on the TV.

**On today's Ghostwatch, claims that some of the ghosts are starting to talk, and there seems to be a regular formation gathering around Westminster Bridge. It's almost like a military display. **

**#**

**And tonight we're expecting very strong ghosts from London, through the North and up into Scotland. **

#

**So basically, Eileen, what you're telling me is, that you are in love with a ghost. **

**He's my ghost, and I love him twenty four seven. **

#

**Well, no one needs me anymore! **

#

**My ghost was pale and grey until I discovered Ectoshine! **

#

**Et le President d'aujourd'hui, quelle est **

#

"It's all over the world." Clara voiced the obvious as the TV switched to Eastenders.

**Listen to me, Den Watts. I don't care if you have come back from the grave. Get out of my pub! The only spirits I'm serving in this place are gin, whisky and vodka. So, you heard me. Get out! **

Jackie laughed, so the Doctor switched the TV off and turned to her. "When did it start?" he asked.

"Well, first of all, Peggy heard this noise in the cellar, so she goes down-" Jackie began, making Clara want to hit her head with her hand.

"No, I mean worldwide."

"That was about two months ago. Just happened. Woke up one morning, and there they all were. Ghosts, everywhere. We all ran round screaming and that. Whole planet was panicking. No sign of you, thank you very much. Then it sort of sank in. It took us time to realise that we're lucky." Rose said, shooting a smug look Clara's way.

"What makes you think it's your granddad?" she asked.

"It just feels like him. There's that smell, those old cigarettes." Jackie said slightly distant "You've got to make an effort. You've got to want it."

"The more you want it, the stronger it gets." The Doctor decided.

"Sort of, yeah." Rose agreed.

"Like a psychic link. Of course you want your old dad to be alive, but you're wishing him into existence. The ghosts are using that to pull themselves in." the doctor said. Clara bit her lip as Jackie's face fell.

"You're spoiling it!"

"I'm sorry, Jackie, but there's no smell, there's no cigarettes. Just a memory." The Doctor reasoned.

"But if they're not ghosts, what are they then?" Rose asked him.

"Yeah, but they're human! You can see them. They look human."

"She's got a point. I mean, they're all sort of blurred, but they're definitely people." Clara said.

"Maybe not. They're pressing themselves into the surface of the world. But a footprint doesn't look like a boot." The Doctor said, and a heavy silence fell over them all.

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	12. Torchwood

**Allons-y Impossible Girl**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who**

Chapter 12

**A/N Rickey didn't die in the parallel universe for the sake of this story.**

"According to the paper, they've elected a ghost as MP for Leeds. Now don't tell me you're going to sit back and do nothing." Clara said, leaning against the railing in the TARDIS. Rose stood awkwardly to one side, watching her as she leafed through the pages. She seemed so at home here, stood next to him. It had once been Rose Tyler and the Doctor. Now it was Clara Oswald and the Doctor. It didn't seem fair to her. He had _replaced _her. Like she was nothing to him. Replaced him with some brunette in high heels and ripped jeans.

The Doctor popped up from the floor with a backpack and a strange hosepipe thing. "What you gonna call?" he shouted.

"Ghostbusters!" Clara shrieked with laughter as he jumped up and headed towards the door, completely forgetting Rose.

"I ain't afraid of no ghosts." He said in a stupid voice before running out into the playground where Jackie was waiting. "When's the next shift?" he asked her.

"Quarter to." Rose said, just to get him to notice her "What's that lot do?"

"Triangulates their point of origin." The Doctor explained as he set it up. Clara looked ready to say something, so despite it being silly and childish Rose hurried in with her own suggestions before she had a chance.

"I don't suppose it's the Gelth?"

"Gelth?" Clara raised an eyebrow, crossing her arms.

"Nah. They were just coming through one little rift. This lot are transposing themselves over the whole planet. Like tracing paper." The Doctor said.

"You're always doing this. Reducing it to science. Why can't it be real? Just think of it, though. All the people we've lost. Our families coming back home. Don't you think it's beautiful?" Jackie asked, putting an arm around Rose. The Doctor and Clara looked at them.

"I think it's horrific." The Doctor said bluntly "Clara, give us a hand."

The two raced into the TARDIS, Jackie and Rose following. They plugged some cables in and fiddled for a bit while Rose hovered hopefully and Jackie stood back.

"As soon as the cones activate, if that line goes into the red, press that button there. If it doesn't stop" The Doctor instructed Clara, handing her the sonic screwdriver "Setting fifteen B. Hold it against the port, eight seconds and stop."

"Fifteen B, eight seconds." Clara grinned.

"If it goes into the blue, activate the deep scan on the left." He then instructed. Clara pointed at the button and the Doctor nodded in approval.

"Right, how long have we got?"

"Two minutes" Jackie supplied and he ran back out into the playground. Rose stayed put, sick of him ignoring her.

"What's the line doing?" he shouted from outside.

"It's all right. It's holding!" Clara called, her eyes and hands busy with the console. Rose watched her, thinking how if she'd just given him a chance, it would have been her.

"You used to be like that" Jackie said quietly, coming up beside her. "You'd changed so much when you went away."

"For the better." Rose argued half-heartedly.

"No." Jackie shook her head. "You belong home with me. With Mickey. Because when I'm gone, you would have never come back if you were still with him. You'd keep on changing. And in forty years' time, fifty, there'd be this woman, this strange woman, walking through the marketplace on some planet a billion miles from Earth. But she's not Rose Tyler. Not anymore. She's not even human."

Rose let this thought sink in while the Doctor and Clara shouted back and forth. They trapped the ghost for a bit, then he came running back in with a grin on his face. "I said so! Those ghosts have been forced into existence from one specific point, and I can track down the source. Allons-y!" he threw the TARDIS into flight. "I like that. Allons y. I should say allons-y more often. Allons y. Impossible Girl. Allons y. And then, it would be really brilliant if I met someone called Alonso, because then I could say, allons y, Alonso, every time. You're staring at me." He said, looking intently at Clara's face. She coughed and nudged her head in Rose's direction. The Doctor waved awkwardly at her.

"My mum's still on board." She said coldly.

"If we end up on Mars, I'm going to kill you." Jackie shouted from above, making clara snigger, and the Doctor groan.

They materialised in a loading bay somewhere. The minute they were still armed troops surrounded them as they watched from the scanner.

"Oh well there goes the advantage of surprise. Still, cuts to the chase. Stay in here, look after Jackie." The Doctor said cheerfully to the girls.

"I am not staying here with them!" Clara said in horror.

"I'm not looking after my mum." Rose said simultaneously. Both girls glared at him. The Doctor ignored Clara and tried to reason with Rose.

"you brought her." He said.

"I was kidnapped!" Jackie argued.

"Doctor, they've got guns." Rose changed the subject, please her was paying some ttention finally.

"And I haven't. Which makes me the better person, don't you think? They can shoot me dead, but the moral high ground is mine." He said, winking at Clara as he stepped outside. Jackie and Rose stayed by the door while she watched from the monitor. A woman in a skirt suit with big blonde hair was applauding him.

"Oh! Oh, how marvellous. Oh, very good. Superb. Happy day." She said, making the soldiers join in.

"Er, thanks. Nice to meet you. I'm the Doctor." He awkwardly introduced himself. This was not really the sort of thing he had expected.

"Oh, I should say. Hurray!" the woman grinned and started clapping again.

"You, you've heard of me, then?"

"Well of course we have. And I have to say, if it wasn't for you, none of us would be here. The Doctor and the Tardis." They clapped even more at this, making the Doctor even more uncomfortable and try to get them to stop.

"And you are?" he asked.

"Oh, plenty of time for that." The woman said dismissively. "But according to the records, you're not one for travelling alone. The Doctor and his companion. That's a pattern, isn't it, right? There's no point hiding anything. Not from us. So where is she?"

"Yes. Sorry. Good point. She's just a bit shy, that's all." The Doctor grinned, reaching into the TARDIS and grasping, much to Clara's amusement, the first person he could. It just so happened to be Jackie.

"But here she is, err... Rose Tyler." The Doctor said, looking Jackie up and down. "Hmm. She's not the best I've ever had. Bit too blonde. Not too steady on her pins. A lot of that." He made a yakkety yak movement with his hand. "And just last week, she stared into the heart of the Time Vortex and aged fifty seven years. But she'll do."

"I'm forty." Jackie cried.

"Deluded. Bless. I'll have to trade her in. Do you need anyone? She's very good at tea. Well, I say very good, I mean not bad. Well, I say not bad. Anyway, lead on. Allons-y. But not too fast. Her ankle's going." The Doctor continued making Jackie retort angrily.

Clara and Rose heard them walk away, before turning to face each other.

"So…" Rose was first to break the unbelievably awkward silence.

"So" Clara sighed "Looks like we have to find our own way around. Psychic paper, that's what we need" she reached her hand into the Doctor's coat pocket and pulled it out. They felt the TARDIS jolt beneath them as it began to be driven somewhere. It was a strange sensation, one of those rare moments when you really felt the giant room inside the box.

"When did you meet him!" the question tumbled from Rose's mouth before she could stop it. Clara looked at her in surprise.

"Christmas, why?" Clara asked. Rose looked like she wanted to break something.

"This last Christmas" she asked, breathing deeply. "This Christmas just past?" Clara nodded in confirmation. "Great, just great" Rose said bitterly.

"Really?" Clara rolled her eyes and began to unpin her hair, since she was starting to get a headache.

"Where'd you meet him? What trouble could he have possibly got himself into so quickly that you got wrapped up in his world?" Rose demanded, her voice getting higher and higher.

"In a bar. I served him." Clara said, watching Rose in curiosity "Are you all right?"

"No I am not!" she snapped "It just… well… nice you know it only took him a few hours to replace me with the first chick who sells him a drink."

Clara sighed and was ready to snap back when she noticed the tears forming in Rose's eyes. She softened slightly, and despite the jealousy headache she did not miss from her meeting Sarah Jane approached her. "If it's any constellation" she said softly "He was insanely hung up over you"

Before Rose could reply they came to a stop and heard the soldiers walk away. Clara dashed to the doors and stepped out, Rose following. They were in a large warehouse full of boxes and strange alien objects. Clara glanced around her before turning to eye Rose's sweatpants and hoodie critically.

"Here put this on" she whispered, handing her a lab coat discarded to one side "You'll fit in better" Clara already looked smart enough but was beginning to wonder why she took her hair out.

They crept out into a corridor and jogged around a few corners before coming to a large door that opened with ID. Clara pressed the psychic paper to the scanner.

"What do we do?" Rose hissed as the door slid open "Normal people don't share ID!"

Clara straightened her smart white shirt and tossed her loose curls back with a grin. 2I prefer the direct approach" she told Rose, before striding confidently into the room. A large sphere hung at the other end of the room and made both girls feel uneasy. Two boys worked beneath it with their backs to them and a scientist approached them.

"Can I help you?" he asked. Clara turned to him.

"Yes, we're looking for the Doctor!" she said "Has he been down here?"

The man sighed. "Seal the room boys. You two, take a seat" he order. The two at the end of the room and both girls' jaws dropped. Rose stared at her boyfriend and his doppelganger, and Clara stared at Rickey and his doppelganger. Both grinned and pressed their fingers to their lips.

Soon the man, Rajesh, had set up a video call with the woman, Yvonne. They waved at the Doctor through the screen. The Doctor was about to start insulting Jackie again when everything fell apart. Rajesh began freaking out over the sphere existing while something about ghost shifts happened at the Doctor's end.

Mickey and Rickey approached the two confused girls. "Rickey, what's going on" Clara asked.

"It's alright" Rickey assured her "We beat them once we can do it again!" Mickey nodded in agreement and lifted a huge gun.

"Beat what?" Rose asked, while Clara's eyes widened in realisation.

"We had them beaten, but then they escaped. The Cybermen just vanished. They found a way through to this world, but so did we." Rickey explained to her while Mickey filled Rose in on the whole _that's me from a parallel universe, he just sort of showed up one day. _

"The Doctor said that was impossible." Clara said, eyes fixed on the sphere.

"Yeah, it's not the first time he's been wrong." Mickey snorted.

"What's inside that sphere?" Rose asked.

"No one knows. Cyber Leader, Cyber King, Emperor of the Cybermen. Whatever it is, he's dead meat." Rickey said confidently, raising the gun.

"It's good to see you." Clara said with a smile, confident that Rickey could stop the Cybermen again.

"Yeah. It's good to see you too." He said. Mickey and Clara quickly introduced themselves while Rose eyed Rickey wearily.

The sphere began to crack open, so the boys raised their guns. "This is going to blast them to Hell."

In a blaze of light the sphere slowly disappeared. Then four large pepperpot things glided out of it and towards them.

"That's not Cybermen." Mickey said in horror.

"Oh, my God." Was all Rose could say. The black dalek moved forwards.

"Location, Earth. Life forms detected. Exterminate!" it rasped, and the others joined in.

"Exterminate! Exterminate! Exterminate!"

The words pressed themselves into every corner of Clara's brain. The floor fell away from under her feet and she had a strange sensation of falling, before her world went black.

**Please Review! **


	13. Answers and Daleks

**Allons-y Impossible Girl**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who!**

Chapter 13

"What's down there? They were in that room with the sphere. What's happened to Rose?" Jackie demanded of the Doctor.

"I don't know. I'll find her. I brought you here, I'll get you both out, you and your daughter." The Doctor said. Jackie nodded much to his surprise. He had expected her to argue.

"You love her" Jackie said "That Clara girl, you're in love with her" the Doctor opened his mouth to protest "Don't deny it, you do even if you haven't realised it yet. And you'll do anything to save her. Which means saving Rose too"

The Doctor thought this over. He remembered how it felt that night by the lake, or when they danced at derillium. How she smiled, and how he had though, yes. Yes this girl was different.

He would do anything to save her, which of course meant saving Rose.

Rose watched Clara crumple to the floor and Rickey kneel beside her. The daleks did not stop, only kept trundling towards them preparing to exterminate. So since the current companion was currently useless in this crisis, she yelled "Daleks!" To her immense relief the stopped so she continued. "You're called Daleks. I know your name. Think about it how can I know that? A human who knows about the Daleks and the Time War. If you want to know how, then keep us alive. That's all I'm asking. Me and my friends."

"Yeah, Daleks. Time War. Me too." Mickey and Rickey said, realising this was the way to save them.

"Yeah. And me." Seconded Rajesh

"You will be necessary." The black dalek decided before turning to the others "Report. What is the status of the Genesis Ark?"

They were all gathered around a contraption box thing. "Status, hibernation." One of the daleks said.

"Commence awakening. The Genesis Ark must be protected above all else." They all moved towards it and the humans stepped back. Rickey hauled Clara up and pulled her back, so she hung limply at his side.

"The Daleks. You said they were all dead." Mickey hissed at Rose.

"Never mind that. What the hell's a Genesis Ark?" she asked. No one was able to answer that question, so they waited. Eventually the black dalek turned around.

"Which of you is least important?" it demanded, its eye stalk moving from each of them. It rested on Clara's unconscious body for a moment, but moved on without comment.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Rose asked in a shaky voice. The question was repeated. "No, we don't work like that. None of us."

"Designate the least important!" the black Dalek screeched. Then Rajesh stepped forward.

"This is my responsibility." He said quietly "I er, I represent the Torchwood Institute. Anything you need, you come through me. Leave these four alone."

"You will kneel." Rajesh obeyed, which Rose thought was impressive with his shaking legs. What followed was awful. They took his brain waves and turned him into a dusty corpse.

"His mind spoke of a second species invading Earth infected by the superstition of ghosts." The dalek said, turning to the others.

"You didn't need to kill him!" Rose shouted at them, knowing it was useless.

"Neither did we need him alive." Was the answer they received. Rose buried her face in Mickey's shoulder while the Daleks made contact with the Cybermen.

* * *

_Where am I. I don't know where I am. I don't know where I am!_

_I am not a dalek I am human. I am not a dalek I am human _

Clara's eyes gently fluttered open. She sat up quickly, surprised that nothing hurt. She was in a dim, open space, smoke surrounding her and strange noises coming from far away. This place felt odd, but at the same time, felt familiar.

"You're awake, we need to talk" someone said. Clara whirled around to see someone standing behind her. Only not just someone, herself.

It was this same face, same eyes, same hair only hers was shorter. They looked at each other closely.

"Who are you?" Clara asked "Why do you look like me?"

The girl chuckled. "I'm Clara Oswald. The Impossible Girl. And I don't look like you. _You _look like _me."_

"What's that supposed to mean? And where are we?" Clara demanded, looking around her.

"We're in the timestream. And I need to talk to you" the Impossible girl said. "You've messed up"

"How?" Clara asked "What is going on. This isn't funny! I was at Torchwood!"

"You're dreaming. Sort of" the impossible girl pulled a face. "I felt it. When you changed the timeline I felt it. So when you passed out I pulled you here to have a little chat."

"What do you mean change the timeline? Who's timeline?"

"The Doctor's" she said gravely "And you have to fix it."

"You need to start explaining yourself!" Clara shouted "What is happening?"

"Ok, please" the impossible girl held her hands up "I travelled with the Doctor. In his future. And one day, the Great Intelligence, they jumped into his timestream. Where we are now. They destroyed his at every single point of his life."

"But I travel with him now" Clara said "He hasn't died"

"You're not supposed to travel with him. I followed the great intelligence, ripped myself into a hundred thousand different copies of myself. That's what you are. A copy of me, designed to save the Doctor."

Clara felt anger boil up inside of her. "I am not a copy of anyone!" she said dangerously "I am real!"

"See, right there" the impossible girl, slowly walking closer "You're mind, it knows you're not real. Well, that you're not supposed to be real."

"What do you mean, _supposed?" _Clara spat, thinking this girl had some nerve, but also knowing deep down she was right.

"You were meant to say no. You were meant to tell him to stop being an idiot and go get Rose Tyler back. Only there was a glitch. Your instinct, the drive implanted inside of you the moment you dropped into existence, to make him continue on his path, it faded out of you and you said yes" she said "and now you have to change it back"

"How can I do that?" Clara asked suspiciously "No way are you sending me back in time" she said, stepping away with her hands up. Impossible girl rolled her eyes.

"The Doctor is going to find a way to stop the cybermen by sucking them into the void. When he does, you must follow. Then the timeline can continue, and he might just appreciate us a little more in the future." Impossible girl said simply. Clara gritted her teeth.

"No." she said determinedly.

"You have to." Impossible girl said "Please. I know he shows you fantastic things, and I know he's amazing but his life. You're not a part of it yet. One day, you will be. And he'll show you the most incredible things" her eyes shone "Rings of Akhatten, Hedgewick's World of Wonders, Gallifrey!"

Clara sighed. "Gallifrey burned."

"We saved it. Him, me and then the other two Doctor's" she said dismissively "The point is, I know he's the most incredible person you've ever met and I know you're dazzled by him-"

Clara cut her off with a laugh. "Dazzled?" she scoffed "I'm in love with him!" this seemed to finally stun her.

"No you don't!" was her gaping response "You can't!"

"What's that supposed to mean?" Clara snapped.

"You just-" the Impossible girl struggled for words. Then she sighed and laughed softly. "Oh I don't know. It's not fair anyway." She sunk to the ground, hugging her knees.

"What's not fair?" Clara asked, sinking down beside her. The world was suddenly quiet around them. The mist climbed up to her knees and hugged her life a comfort blanket. Despite it being slightly creepy here, it felt like home.

"Just how it worked out isn't it. You have to die, you're supposed to die. Sounds awful but it's true." She murmured. "I don't remember it myself. He took it from my mind. I'm dreaming now, just to try and get you to fix it"

"Why can't I stay with him?" Clara asked her "I love him, I really do. Who cares where it winds up?"

"It all matters." Something burned in her eyes unbelievably fiercely, but Clara wouldn't back down. "Everywhere he goes; every moment he lives we work to stop the only thing he has never truly been able to stop."

"Do they, us, you, oh whatever" the pronouns were starting to make her head spin. Clara breathed deeply "Do they remember him? All those things I see sometimes."

"I'll bet they give you pounding headaches." Clara nodded "Yeah, that's the memories. No, we don't usually remember, it would draw too much attention. Usually you'd only get a feeling you had to play things around him perfectly. But you've been exposed to him for a long time and played a significant part in his timeline. You'll remember things that didn't happen to you particularly, just another version of yourself. What do you remember?" she asked curiously.

"Stuff. Don't like Sarah Jane or Rose. Strong memories when I saw people butchering people for body parts. Um… that school we went too, daleks, oh my god Daleks!" Clara gasped as she was hit with an onslaught of memories.

"Yeah. You will never really like companions, you're jealous because he saw them but not you. The connection between you and me is strong that's why you remember the stuff from Victorian London… but now you have to go. Join him. I really hope you have the strength to let go, quite literally" The Impossible Girl said as they stood "You can't stay. One day you _must _leave him in order to meet him in the first place. Today, because if you don't… You will never be the same again" she looked right into Clara's eyes. "You won't remember this, but now that you've been here your other lives will start to mix inside your head. You'll know things you shouldn't. That's why you have to die. You're smart. You know that."

"I always was a genius" Clara snorted. The impossible girl laughed.

"Good bye Clara Oswald. Tell that clever boy to run and remember."

* * *

Rose looked up at her boyfriend, so fearless even though all this stuff had never really been a part of his world. "You're the bravest man I've ever met." She told him earnestly. He smiled.

"What about the Doctor?" he smirked, but she only shook her head. Before he could answer Rickey approached them with a fiannly conscious Clara.

"You ok?" Rose asked her, because she really didn't look it. Her eyes was bright but confused and she looked exhausted.

"Yeah I just" Clara held a hand to her pounding head. They all turned to Mickey who was waiting to speak.

"I can't think what the Daleks need with me. I'm nothing to them." Mickey said in confusion. Rose swallowed.

"You could be… like well the motivation. Whatever's inside that Ark is waking up, and I've seen this happen before." She thought back to the chained last dalek and thought of Mickey being exterminated. "The first time I saw a Dalek, it was broken. It was dying. But I touched it. The moment I did that, I brought it back to life. As the Doctor said, when you travel in time in the Tardis, you soak up all this background radiation. It's harmless. It's just there. But in the Time War, the Daleks evolved so they could use it as a power supply."

"I love it when you talk technical." Mickey grinned and Rose hit him playfully, despite the ultimately dangerous situation.

"Shut up. If the Daleks have got something inside that thing, and it needs waking up." Rose concluded

"They need you or Clara." Mickey realised "And they'll threaten to kill me and Rickey if you don't"

"But why would you built something you couldn't open yourselves?" Rickey asked the daleks.

"The technology is stolen. The Ark is not of Dalek design." The black dalek said, turning to face them.

"Then who built it?" Rose asked. It was strange to be back negotiating with aliens, but Clara looked far too dazed to do it.

"The Time Lords. This is all that survives of their Home World."

"What's inside?" Clara asked, suddenly more alert. She still leaned heavily against Rickey, but there was a touch of desperation to her tone.

"The future." With these words, the four daleks disconnected from the ark and turned to the four humans. "Final stage of awakening."

The black dalek looked right at Rose "Your handprint will open the Ark."

"Well tough, because I'm not doing it." She said bravely. She expected them to move onto Clara, but they seemed unfazed by her presence the entire time.

"Obey or the male will die." It threatened, pointing its gun at Mickey. She looked at him hopelessly.

"I can't let them." She explained, stepping forward. He protested but she didn't listen. "All right! You're going to kill us anyway, so what the hell? If you er, escaped the Time War, don't you want to know what happened?"

"Place your hand" the black dalek began to repeat.

"What happened to the Emperor?" this peaked everyone, strangely enough even Clara's interest.

"The Emperor survived?" she asked in confusion. Everyone, including the daleks turned to look at her.

"Till he met me. Because if these are going to be my last words, then you're going to listen. I met the Emperor, and I took the Time Vortex and I pulled it into his head and turned him into dust. Do you get that? The God of all Daleks, and I destroyed him. Ha!"

This infuriated the daleks and they began to screech "You will be exterminated!" Clara's head began to spin, so she got down on her knees, right by the black dalek. She didn't seem to notice its gun was right next to her head but neither did it.

Rickey was debating whether or not to pull her away when the Doctor swaggered in wearing the 3D glasses. "Oh now, hold on, wait a minute." He looked at the gun and Clara in panic "No, No, No!"

"Alert, alert. You are the Doctor." The black dalek said. "Sensors report he is unarmed."

"That's me. Always." The Doctor said, almost cheerfully but his eyes still fixed on a dizzy Clara.

"Then you are powerless." The daleks concluded.

"Not me. Never." He replied "Now I swear to god if you hurt Clara-"

If a dalek could look confused, it did. They looked at one another and down at her. "We would not hurt her" the black dalek said slowly "We would not hurt her"

"Why not?" the Doctor asked as she clambered up into his waiting arms.

The daleks paused. Then their reply made everyone's insides freeze. "Because she is one of us!"

**Please Review!**


	14. Let Go

**Allons-y Impossible Girl**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who**

Chapter 14

Silence fell over the room. Every eye was fixed on Clara, whose eyes were wide and face was white. You are one of us. The words echoed around her mind, memories and voices and images jumping forwards. Daleks. She could see them. She remembered all the things they'd done, the time war, all their thoughts, their evil. She could remember it. But she couldn't be one of them. She was human. Not Dalek, human! She had a childhood, parents (Well sort of), she was compassionate and she loved the Doctor she didn't hate him.

"One of you!" She spat, stepping forward and drawing herself up to her full, rather unimpressive, height "I am not one of you! I am human. Flesh and blood and emotion! I am not a Dalek" the Daleks eyestalk was about level with her head and stared unwavering at her.

After a moment both the Doctor and one of the other Daleks came forward. He pointed his sonic screwdriver at her and pressed a button while the Dalek said "scanning" his eyestalk moved up and down her body. "Results: Ordinary human, female"

"See" the Doctor said "I have the same. Like she said, flesh and blood"

"But we detect Dalek in her" the black Dalek insisted. "And the Daleks do not harm their own kind, unless they stand in the way of the future" Every eyestalk fixed on her and she felt a uncomfortable feeling settle at the bottom of her stomach. Then they turned to the Doctor. "How did you survive the Time War?"

"By fighting. On the front line. I was there at the fall of Arcadia. Someday I might even come to terms with that. But you lot ran away!" The Doctor lowered his screwdriver and tore his concerned eyes from Clara. She was still staring at the Daleks.

"We had to survive" the black Dalek said.

"The last four Daleks in existence. So what's so special about you?" The Doctor asked, wandering from side to side, trying to get into a good position.

"Doctor," Rose's voice startled him, he'd almost forgotten her. "they've got names. I mean, Daleks don't have names, do they? One of them said they" the Doctor frowned at this. The one of the Daleks came forwards.

"I am Dalek Thay." He said.

"Dalek Sek." The black Dalek repeated.

"Dalek Jast."

"Dalek Caan."

At these some idea began to form in the Doctors mind, but Clara got there first. "Cult of Skaro" she murmured, and Rose and Mickey looked at her in fear, while the Doctors head began to spin. She was human, he was cirtain she was human. She just had to be human.

"So that's it! At last. The Cult of Skaro. I thought you were just a legend."

"Who are they?" Rose asked, though she didn't sound sure she wanted to know. Clara opened her mouth to answer, but her eyes were wide with terror and the Doctor jumped in first.

"A secret order above and beyond the Emperor himself. Their job was to imagine, think as the enemy thinks. Even dared to have names. All to find new ways of killing." His eyes darkened and his tone conveyed his disgust.

"But that thing," Mickey gestured to the genesis arc "They said it was yours. I mean, Time Lords. They built it. What does it do?"

"I don't know. Never seen it before." The Doctor shrugged.

"But it's Time Lord." Rose protested in frustration.

"Both sides had secrets." Clara muttered. A picture in her mind of a old man, older then old, walking towards a barn across a desert land under what was once a beautiful sky with a sack over his shoulder. A bag that held destruction. The greatest secret.

"What is it? What have you done?" The Doctor demanded, oblivious to what his companion could see of his past.

"Time Lord science will restore Dalek supremacy." The black Dalek informed them. The Doctor was getting increasingly frustrated.

"What does that mean? What sort of Time Lord science? What do you mean?"

"One touch of a time traveller" Clara whispered. "Touch. The one thing a Dalek can't do."

"Sealed inside your casing. Not feeling anything ever, from birth to death, locked inside a cold metal cage. Completely alone. That explains your voice. No wonder you scream." The Doctor said, staring down at the angry creatures.

"The Doctor will open the Ark!" It ordered, as if that was going to help. Clara wanted to laugh.

"The Doctor will not." Clara watched, fighting back the tsunami of images crashing through her mind. She was a bit out of it, and before she could collect herself the door was blown open and chaos was descending as Cybermen and people with guns raced inside.

"Jake!" Clara said in surprise as the handsome boy wrapped his arm around her.

"Hello lovely girl" he grinned cheekily "let's get out of here shall we?" He suggested, pulling her out the door to where the Doctor stood hurrying them all along. They watched as Rose stumbled and Pete helped her to her feet.

"Oh my god!" She said staring at him frozen "your my dad"

"Hello, Rose right?" Pete said. She only nodded, completely shocked. "Come on!" They moved to get out but the Daleks and the Cybermen jostled them and Roses hand hit the genesis arc in attempt to get away. The Doctor closed the door behind them and she turned to him panic stricken.

"I didn't mean to I swear I just-" Clara grabbed her arm and tugged her down the corridor.

"Rose, if you hadn't opened it for them, they would've tried to do it by force which wouldn't have ended well for the entire planet." Clara said. The Doctor suddenly stopped and spun around, alarming them all and making them trip over each other.

"How do you know that?" He asked. His voice was deadly calm and his eyes burned with something so terrible none of them could bare to look, except Clara who stared right back, her own eyes flashing time stream gold. He didn't seem to notice that though.

"I don't know." She said steadily "but I am not a Dalek."

"How do I know that!" The Doctor suddenly shouted, making her flinch "You're smart. You're not your parents daughter. And Daleks don't just randomly assume people as one of them and choose not to hurt them!"

"I am not a Dalek I am human" Clara screamed, stretching onto her tiptoes to get closer to his face, tears springing to her eyes.

"Then what are you!" He screamed back, and for a moment his face showed just how hurt he was. Hurt by the fact he had fallen for another one, only to be tricked.

"I'm a barmaid!" Clara yelled "I'm a barmaid who has seen the stars, alien planets and moments in time. I see wonders with you Doctor and I have known you far a while, I know you are haunted by your past and have done terrible things, so you try to save people and do good. And I know I am not a Dalek because I feel. I have never thought to destroy you, or hate you in any kind of way!" Tears fell over her cheeks and the Doctor just stared at her. Then he pulled her close and kissed the top of her head.

"I'm sorry. I just had to be sure" he murmured. Clara didn't believe he was letting the whole knowing stuff thing go but the moment was nice.

Meanwhile Pete and Rose were staring at each other. "You're alive" was the only thing she seemed to be able to say while Pete explained how he was from a parallel universe and everything. Eventually Rickey cleared his throat and Clara and Rose turned to glare at him. He held his arms up.

"Cybermen, Daleks!" He pointed out defensively and they were suddenly running came across Jackie in another corridor and she and Pete had a strange reunion, which Clara felt the man was taking spectacularly well considering a daughter and his dead daughter had been thrown at him in the space of a few minutes. After the Daleks and the Cybermen had a showdown they all clambered into the lift to get to the top and see what Time-Lord science the genesis arc was. They all watched in horror from the top of Canary Wharf as it began to spin and shoot Daleks all over the city.

"It's bigger on the inside" the Doctor groaned "a prison ship"

"Millions of Daleks and Cybermen all over London. That is definitely not good!" Clara said, watching the Daleks spread.

Pete seemed to be thinking along the same lines as he pulled one of the yellow transporters out of his pocket and said "I'm sorry, but you've had it. This world's going to crash and burn. There's nothing we can do. We're going home." He handed them to his wife and daughter "Jacks, Rose, take these. "You're coming with us."

"But they're destroying the city." Jackie pointed out, unsure how he expected them to just leave their home in ruins.

"I'd forgotten you could argue." Pete chuckled before becoming serious again. "It's not just London, it's the whole world. But there's another world just waiting for you, Jacks. And it's safe as long as the Doctor closes the breach. Doctor?"

The Doctor spun around with his 3D glasses and grinned at them "Oh, I'm ready. I've got the equipment right here. Thank you, Torchwood." He jumped at a computer "Slam it down and close off both universes."

"Reboot systems." The computer said as it powered up.

"But we can't just leave. What about the Daleks? And the Cybermen?" Rose argued as everyone walked around getting ready. Clara was stood to the side.

"They're part of the problem, and that makes them part of the solution." He grinned at Clara who was starting to grin.

"What's with the glasses?" She smirked, knowing that was the question he needed to be asked.

"I can see, that's what." The Doctor said gleefully "because we've got two separate worlds, but in between the two separate worlds, we've got the Void. That's where the Daleks were hiding. And the Cybermen travelled through the Void to get here. And you lot, one world to another, via the Void. Oh, I like that. Via the Void. Look." He pulled the glasses off and stuck them on Clara's nose. She looked at the green particles surrounding them all except for Rose, Mickey and Jackie.

"We've been through. When the TARDIS died" Clara realised with a smile, looking at her own hand. "What is it? Like... Background radiation?"

"Yeah that's it" the Doctor grinned "Void Stuff. But the Daleks lived inside the Void. They're bristling with it. Cybermen, all of them. I just open the Void and reverse. The Void stuff gets sucked back inside."

"Pulling them all in!" Clara laughed out loud and jumped up and down so hard her heal threatened to snap. Then she was hit with something. "Hang on, we're covered in the stuff too. We'll get pulled in along with the Daleks and Cybermen"

"So you have to go" the Doctor slipped one of the medallions around her neck.

"Reboot in two minutes." The computer said.

"Back to Pete's world. Hey, we should call it that. Pete's World. I'm opening the Void, but only on this side. You'll be safe on that side." The Doctor told her.

"And then you close it, for good?" Pete asked.

"The breach itself is soaked in Void stuff. In the end it'll close itself. And that's it. Kaput." He said without any of the enthusiasm from a moment ago.

"And you're just staying here?" Clara demanded angrily "No way! I'm with you, all the way. Those clamp things" She gestured to the mangaclamps "there's two of them. We'll hold on tight" the Doctor opened his mouth to argue but she got there first "No. You can't. I have nothing on that side. I don't want anything if I can't have you!"

The Doctor stared down at them. Then Rose touched his arm. "Let her stay. You need her. And she needs you" she said and forced a smile. "Take it from someone who has been sent away from you. It's not worth arguing. She'll just come back." He sighed and Clara smiled in triumph. "Goodbye" Rose whispered. "And thank you"

"Thank you Rose Tyler" he said sincerely. She smiled at him with wet eyes, and then she was gone with the others.

"Systems rebooted. Open access." The computer said. The Doctor and Clara jumped into action.

"Those coordinates over there, set them all at six. And hurry up." The Doctor told her. She ran to the terminal and tossed the medallion aside.

"Levers operational." The computer said. He tossed her a mangaclamp and they placed them on opposite walls by the levers, pressing the red buttons.

"When it starts, just hold on tight. Shouldn't be too bad for us but the Daleks and the Cybermen are steeped in Void stuff. Are you ready?" He grinned at her and she grinned back. "Let's do it!"

They pushed the levers up and grabbed the clamps. The computer declared it online, the breach lit up and the Daleks and Cybermen began flying into the void. It was all fine. Everything was going smoothly until the most awful feeling swept over Clara.

She had to let go. She had to go to the void. The thought began to consume everything. Let go. Let go. She didn't want to. She wanted to stay with him and see wanders. She wanted to be his impossible girl. But she had to let go. Images flashed across her mind.

Dying. It would be quick, then her body would break apart and fly to another time and place. She'd done it thousands of times. This one would be no different. He had a future that was far more important then her own. But why? The reasons behind hundreds of thousands of lifetimes slipped away so quickly.

Slowly Clara felt the pictures of her death, the future he needed, take over her body. Her resolve began to melt and her grip weakened. She was going to die. Her own instinct, her own mind, body, would kill her.

But that wasn't fair. She really loved him, and a part of her was sure he loved her too. He needed her to stay this time, not to give her life for no clear reason. Fighting with all her strength Clara forced the memories to the front of her mind. His face in the bar. Their first trip in the TARDIS. Him catching her as Cassandra left her body. Him grabbing her hand as they ran from aliens. Messing around when making soufflés. His funny smile. They way he said her name. The ice plant. Dancing at Derrilium. The fight was impossible. But she loved him too much to let go.

**Please Review!**


	15. Genetic Transfer? I think not

**Allons-y Impossible Girl**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who**

**Hi, thank you for all you lovely reviews. On we go into season 3! I'm going straight in, so in this story the Doctor did have his experience with the runaway bride, but Clara wasn't there. Clara is remembering things from her other lives but she doesn't actually remember the reason why. She's clueless at the moment. Just to clarify, Clara's echo is only remembering these things because traveling with the Doctor is exposing her to his time stream a lot! Keep reviewing. Thanks for all your support!**

Chapter 15

Clara had known letting the Doctor be the patient at the hospital they were checking out was bad idea. She had argued that they were going to have a real problem if someone decided to check his heartbeat, but he had been insistent, so it was him lying in the hospital bed surrounded by medical students being tested for 'severe abdominal pains' rather then her. The man, Mr Stoker or something, asked a student Jones to examine him, and Clara looked up at the dark skinned woman for long enough to be hit with the very same burning envy she felt whenever she looked at Sarah Jane, only one thousand times worse. It came completely out of no where, her hatred for this pretty young medical student leaning over the Doctor with a stethoscope. The Doctor eyed her with interest, which didn't make Clara feel any better.

"That wasn't very clever, running around outside, was it?" Jones said to him as she went to check his heartbeat. The action made Clara want to punch both the Doctor, she had said this would happen, and the woman, she still wasn't sure why. She wondered what she meant by him that morning, since she had been right here with him the whole time and he hadn't moved from the bed.

"Sorry?" The Doctor seemed to be about as confused as she was.

"On Chancellor Street this morning? You came up to me and took your tie off." Jones said, as if this obscure explanation would clear it all up.

"Really? What did I do that for?" The Doctor asked her with a frown. Clara glued her eyes to her phone, fighting hard to stay calm. Enduring images of wars she had not been him, knowledge of places and races she had never seen or come across was harder then hiding her sudden strong dislike for Miss Jones. She tuned out for a while, texting Nina and Rory her two friends and wondering how long until the Doctor got bored and took her somewhere actually exciting. It was like her mouth was in auto pilot as it answered a question she hadn't heard with the words "Benjamin Franklin" without looking up. She finally put her phone down when the students walked away, but she didn't miss the grin the Doctor and Jones shared. He looked up at her and frowned, noticing her gritted teeth and balled fists.

"You alright?" He asked with genuine concern that softened Clara's random anger. She nodded and laced his fingers with hers, asking him further about the discovery of static electricity, not actually knowing anything.

* * *

Martha Jones was actually standing on the moon. She was still trying to wrap her head around that idea, and probably would be panicking if it weren't for the screaming patients around her in need of attention. She raced back into the orthopaedic ward saying "All right now, everyone back to bed, we've got an emergency but we'll sort it out. Don't worry." She sincerely hoped that were true, only she could not think of anything worse then this situation, or any way of getting out of it. She walked over to the window murmuring "It's real. It's really real." In disbelief. They were on the moon. Not on the earth, where she had lived and breathed every day of her life since she was born. Air. The thought suddenly came to her and she reached to open the window saying "Hold on"

"Don't! We'll lose all the air." Her friend cried desperately, but that seemed unlikely.

"But they're not exactly air tight." Martha pointed out "If the air was going to get sucked out it would have happened straight away, but it didn't. So how come?" She didn't think anyone was going to answer her question, but at that moment one of the curtains was swung aside and the man, John Smith, the one with double heartbeat stepped forward now dressed in a nice blue suit and converse sneakers. Behind him stood that girl from earlier, the one who Martha was sure had gold flashing on her eyes. She wore a red skirt and leather jacket, had her hair pulled up in a ponytail and would had been very pretty if not for the shadows under her eyes that said she needed lots more sleep and the unattractive glare aimed Martha's way.

"Very good point. Brilliant, in fact. What was your name?" John Smith asked her. She immediately answered.

"Martha."

"And it was Jones, wasn't it? Well then, Martha Jones, the question is, how are we still breathing?" He raised his eyebrows and the girls glare intensified behind him.

"We can't be." Her friend wailed.

"Obviously we are, so don't waste my time." John Smith snapped before turning away "Martha, what have we got? Is there a balcony on this floor, or a veranda, or-"

"By the patients' lounge, yeah." She answered eagerly, not entirely sure why she was listening to this strange man, or helping him out.

"Fancy going out?" He asked her, raising his eyebrows as if he were daring her to back down.

"Okay." She said slowly, fairly certain that if they weren't dead inside they wouldn't be outside.

"We might die." He said, again daring her to run and hide.

"We might not." She said, presenting her own challenge. This seemed to satisfy him.

"Good. Come on." He smiled and moved to leave the ward before remembering something and turning around. The look he gave the girl behind him was so special it made Martha feel very guilty about fancying this man for a moment as he asked "Are you coming Impossible Girl?" The look she gave Martha was so venomous it made all guilty feelings vanish.

"No thanks" she scowled and turned her heal, going to calm some of the patients. The Doctor looked confused by her actions, but went with Martha out onto the balcony anyway. They took deep breaths until finally Martha said "We've got air. How does that work?"

"Just be glad it does." The Doctor said. Martha stared at the earth hanging in the sky above them, and the enormity of the situation crashed down on her. She was standing on the moon. Not the earth. She couldn't just waltz home to get ready for Leo's party at the end of the day.

"I've got a party tonight. It's my brother's twenty first. My mother's going to be really, really" she began to get slightly emotional, which he somehow picked up on.

"You okay?" He asked and she nodded telling him she was sure. When he proposed she go back inside she said

"No way. I mean, we could die any minute, but all the same, it's beautiful."

"Do you think?" He made it sound like seeing the earth hanging in the sky from the moon was an ordinary thing.

"How many people want to go to the moon? And here we are." She laughed out loud. "What do you think happened?" She asked seriously, thinking no matter how beautiful, she wanted to get home somehow.

"What do you think?" He asked her. She thought back to all the strange things that had happened in the last few years.

"Extraterrestrial." She decided "It's got to be. I don't know, a few years ago that would have sounded mad, but these days? That spaceship flying into Big Ben, Christmas, those Cybermen things." She thought of her cousin, the one who could have been her twin, dead after that day. "I had a cousin. Adeola. She worked at Canary Wharf. She never came home."

"I'm sorry." He said.

"Yeah." Was all she trusted herself to say. She didn't have time to break down now. She expected that to be the end of it, but he surprised her.

"I was there, in the battle." He said "Me and Clara were there" his eyes looked so far away, and in that moment Martha could see him as nothing other then a patient she had to look after.

"I promise you, Mister Smith," she said in her most confident voice "we will find a way out. If we can travel to the moon, then we can travel back. There's got to be a way."

He was a lot more confident then she was, because he wasn't really John Smith, he was some kind of Doctor and he recognised the weird rhino alien things that came marching into the hospital. As soon as he saw them they were running from the balcony and back to the ward to find the girl he had called Impossible, or Clara something.

* * *

They all crouched above the lobby, watching the Jadoon catalogue the humans in the hospital. Clara wasn't too interested by this, she was too preoccupied by Martha. No matter how much she wanted to tell the woman to shove off because she and the Doctor had it covered, she couldn't. Some part of her insisted that Martha had to stay.

They moved onto checking the computer bases, Clara doing the hacking while the Doctor soniced it. He explained to her about not being human and the sonic screwdriver which made Clara's blood boil since it looked like Martha was in it for the long haul.

Martha ran to check on Mr Stoker, only was horrified to find Mrs Finnegan drinking his blood. She raced out of the room away from the motorbike men and right into Clara and the Doctor. He looked pleased with himself and she looked downright bored.

"I've restored the back-up." He announced, holding up the machine.

"I found her." Martha said quite suddenly. Clara's head snapped up and her eyes were bright very suddenly.

"What?" She said, uttering the first word to Martha all day. At that moment the motorbike men broke down the door and they were running away from them as fast as they could.

All in all it was a very long day. They spent most of it running from the plasmavore and the Jadoon, then the Doctor fried his sonic screwdriver by accident, which Clara found rather funny (he loved that thing far too much) and then the oxygen began to run out in the hospital. However the highlight of the evening was when the Doctor had to buy himself some time to stop the Jadoon from walking in on the plasmavore before she could drink his blood.

"Clara, Martha, stay here. I need time. You've got to hold them up." He said, turning to the MRI department.

"Well if you have any suggestions, we're all ears" Clara said, hands on her knees as she tried to catch air. She was beginning to struggle to breath easily despite being quite fit and running was not helping even though the adrenaline, like Martha said, kept her going.

The Doctor turned to her and grabbed her on the shoulders and said "Clara, we'll figure this one out later!"

Then he kissed her. Long and hard, right on the lips. It was warm, like he really meant it, yet he was trying to save the earth so it was a little bit rushed. Still, in that moment the hospital and the danger around them melted away, fireworks exploded in front of her eyes and something like electricity spread from her lips to the ends of her fingers and toes.

Martha had felt her attraction to the Doctor slowly dissolving since they came across Clara. It was hard to fancy a guy who was quite obviously in love with the girl who stood beside him. She was harder to read, even if he was the alien, but Martha was almost certain Clara felt the same way. That kiss sealed the deal, even if it caught Clara completely off her was in some sort of shock, fingers to her lips and far as Martha was aware, not breathing.

"Find the non-human. Execute." The Jadoon said so Martha, feeling rather brave, stepped forward in attempt to make them listen.

"Now listen, I know who you're looking for. She's this woman. She calls herself Florence." She was cut off by the scanner in her face. It confirmed she was human, before moving on to Clara.

"Human and Non-human" was the inconclusive result. "Authorise full scan" Clara finally came to her senses as the Jadoon shoved her against the wall and demanded "What are you? What are you?"

Clara looked up at them, eyes defiantly a brighter gold then they had been earlier and muttered "Impossible"

Martha wasn't sure if that was an actual answer. Either way, after a few minutes Clara's eyes were back to golden brown and they confirmed her human, heading her a strange booklet for compensation. The Jadoon moved into the MRI room, and Martha was about to follow when she noticed Clara falling to the floor. She crouched beside her, finding her pulse. It was basically non existent.

"Clara!" She said "Clara what's wrong. I have to help you. The Doctor-"

"Forget me!" Clara snapped even though her eyes were drifting shut "Save him. Don't waste air on me. You have to save the Doctor. Do it because I can't Martha Jones"

Martha felt incredibly guilty leaving Clara slumped in the corridor, and wasn't entirely sure how she could possibly have known the Doctor was dead. She arrived in time to see them obliterate Florence and confirm the Doctor as dead. The Jadoon left, and she felt an immense sense of accomplishment wash over her as she saw the Doctors eyes open before her world went black.

The Doctor heard Martha breath the words "The scanner, she did something" before passing out. He pulled apart the cables that Florence had plugged together and the scanner switched off. He heard the Jadoon spaceships leave the surface of the earth as he scooped Martha up, wandering where Clara was. Panic filled him as he found her lying in the hall, not visibly breathing. He gently placed Martha in a nearby chair before picking up Clara. He lowered his ear to her mouth to see if she was still alive, fear rising in his chest.

She drew a shallow breath to say something, before the sound of rain on the windows interrupted her. She forced her eyes open and looked at his concerned face. "It's raining on the moon" she murmured.

The Doctor gave a relieved smile as with a crash of thunder and flash of lightning, they were returned to London. Clara's cheeks flushed red again as she breathed in. The Doctor carefully set her on her feet and they left the hospital in silence.

* * *

Clara came into the TARDIS console room after much needed rest and shower. The Doctor smiled at her, glad she was breathing and alive. "Look!" He cried in childlike delight, holding up his new sonic screwdriver "Brand new! Got all sorts of new settings"

She curled up in the chair to one side, staring at him whilst chewing her lip. The Doctor immediately picked up that something was wrong and sat down beside her. He said nothing, and after a few minutes Clara finally spoke.

"Do you believe I'm human?" She asked, looking at him "Do you genuinely believe I'm a ordinary human girl, not some trap for you or a evil alien?"

The Doctor sighed. "I don't want to believe" he said "but Daleks don't just assume people as one of their own, and ordinary humans don't know the things you do. They can't. It would be like putting a time lords mind in a humans body, it would burn up."

"I'm not a Dalek I am human" Clara said her little mantra for the a thousandth time "and the things I know. I swear to god they come out of nowhere. I don't know why the Daleks thought I was one of them..." She trailed off as a thought came to her "That kiss... I assumed it was a genetic transfer, but the Daleks and everything... They were confused as to whether I was human or not just like the Jadoon. So a genetic transfer wasn't necessary." She couldn't stop the grin that spread across her face "You kissed me"

The Doctor looked guilty. "Do you mind? I figured if I was going to die..." Clara laughed.

"Course I don't mind. And you weren't going to die. Not in a hospital where Martha Jones worked" Clara pecked him quickly on the lips, taking him by surprise "Speaking of which, you better go get her"

"Get her?" The Doctor looked confused "She's coming with us?"

"Duh" Clara rolled her eyes like it was obvious "You can't leave that kind of impression on someone and never come back. It's not fair"

"But I thought you didn't like her" the Doctor said in confusion "you didn't act like you did"

"That's not the point" Clara argued "I can put up with her. Hey, maybe she'll grow on me. But she _must _come with us"

"Right... Ok..." The Doctor resolved to just go with it. Maybe it was a girl thing "One trip. Then back to just you and me"

Clara grinned. "Great!" She began to waltz down the corridor in search of some new shoes, but stopped and looked over her shoulder at the Doctor who was preparing to go outside and save Martha from her family. "By the way, I told you it was snogbox!"

**Please Review**


	16. Shakespeare and Witches

**Allons-y Impossible Girl**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who**

Chapter 16

Clara had always been a genius. She could hack any computer programme, and she observant of the world around her. However, this genius hadn't really stretched to maths and science and history. Although bright, she had never been bothered to try hard, always living with a subconscious belief that she was meant for something else. So she chatted and texted and messed around in every single one of her classes, apart from the few she actually enjoyed, much to the frustration of her teachers and parents. She received her GCSE results two weeks before she walked from her parent's home. She'd done well in English language, scraped through French, outstanding in English literature and IT and completely failed the rest. After leaving home and taking the job as a barmaid she hadn't gone to college, which meant she couldn't go to university, and she couldn't afford to travel.

If she had gone to university, she would have studied English lit. It was the one thing she had always loved and stuck with. Her English teacher was the only one at her school who believed in her, and it was the only lesson she was dedicated to. So she was pretty excited to be actually in Elizabethan London, standing in front of William Shakespeare himself.

He'd tried to throw them out at first, and Clara was liking Martha more by the minute as she was the reason he let them stay. The best thing was that he was every bit as a genius she had believed him to be, even the Doctor had to admit it. It would have been a perfect trip if it weren't for the random unexpected deaths. Some guy drowned on dry land and then got struck in the heart when there was no body near him. It all seemed weird to Clara, and she didn't believe in witchcraft, but it meant they got to stay another night in Shakespeare's time so she wasn't really complaining.

That was how the three of them found themselves in a rather small room with one bed and wooden dresser. The Doctor thankfully was able to provide them both with toothbrushes.

"So, who's going where? I mean, there's only one bed." Martha pointed out the obvious. Clara was perched on the end and the Doctor was stood by the window.

"Its fine, I won't sleep" they both said at once. They looked at each other in surprise.

"Nope!" The Doctor said in concern "You're sleeping, you spend most your time looking exhausted so you clearly need it." Clara opened her mouth to protest but the Doctor pressed a finger to her lips "I'm a time lord and a Doctor, that beats anything you can come up with"

It was true though. Ever since their trip to Torchwood and the battle of Canary Warf Clara looked as though she was getting little sleep. There were always shadows under her eyes and she had stopped asking for sleep in between adventures. Every few days he would notice and insist she went to bed.

"So, magic and stuff. That's a surprise. It's all a little bit Harry Potter." Martha broke the silence as she climbed up on the bed beside Clara.

"Wait till you read book seven. Oh, I cried." The Doctor said, earning a look from Clara.

"It wasn't that tragic, you're just soft" she rolled her eyes.

"You cant tell me you weren't at least a little upset when Do-" he was cut off by Martha shrieking.

"NO SPOILERS!" Clara jumped so violently it shook the whole mattress "But is it real, though? I mean, witches, black magic and all that, it's real?"

"Course it isn't!" the Doctor laughed as if the idea was obvious. Martha looked slightly put out.

"Well, how am I supposed to know? I've only just started believing in time travel. Give me a break." She said defensivly

"Looks like witchcraft, but it isn't. Can't be. Are you going to stand there all night? There's such a thing as psychic energy, but a human couldn't channel it like that. Not without a generator the size of Taunton and I think we'd have spotted that. No, there's something I'm missing. Something really close, staring me right in the face and I can't see it."

The girls had no answers, so they climbed into bed and blew out the candle, leaving the Doctor alone with his thoughts.

* * *

Clara never wanted to visit a madhouse again after this experience. They all screamed and moaned and the guards whipped them. No matter what Shakespeare's reasoning, she thought the entire idea was horrific.

Streete was not any better than anyone else. He moaned and rocked back and forth, his eyes wide, staring and glassy. They weren't getting much out of him, so the Doctor did the mind thing Clara didn't understand and was slightly scared to ask about.

"Witches spoke to Peter. In the night, they whispered. They whispered. Got Peter to build the Globe to their design. Their design! The fourteen walls. Always fourteen. When the work was done they snapped poor Peter's wits." The architect groaned. At any other time Clara would have chimed in with _its creepy to refer to yourself in the third person._

"Where did Peter see the witches? Where in the city? Peter, tell me. You've got to tell me where were they?" the Doctor demanded.

"All Hallows Street" Peter whispered, and suddenly a woman appeared behind him. She was hideous, old and practically blind wearing old rags. Although Clara knew it wasn't possible, she couldn't think of another word then witch.

"Too many words." She cackled "Just one touch of the heart."

They all backed up, the Doctor shoving Clara behind him and Martha pressing her back to the iron bars as the witch flexed a long, bony finger.

"No!" the Doctor shouted, realising too late what she was about to do and they all watched as she killed Streete with a touch to the chest.

"Witch! I'm seeing a witch!" Shakespeare laughed, eyes fixed on the ugly woman.

"Now, who would be next, hmm? Just one touch. Oh, oh, I'll stop your frantic hearts. Poor, fragile mortals." The witch cackled again, which Clara felt really wasn't helping. Apparently this became too much for Martha who began screaming through the bars.

"Let us out! Let us out!"

"That's not going to work. The whole building's shouting that." The Doctor told her.

"Who will die first, hmm?" the witch asked, taking a step towards them.

"Well, if you're looking for volunteers." The Doctor stepped forwards. Clara's heart rate quickened as she cautiously followed, ready to shove him out the way if necessary.

"No mortal has power over me." The witch laughed as Shakespeare asked if he could stop her. Clara's head began to spin.

"Oh, but there's a power in words. If I can find the right one. If I can just know you." The Doctor frowned and leaned closer.

"None on Earth has knowledge of us."

"Then it's a good thing I'm here. Now think, think, think. Humanoid female, uses shapes and words to channel energy." Images and possibilities Clara hadn't known before began to flash before her eyes, searching for the word that would save him. Then the Doctor shouted "Ah! Fourteen! That's it! Fourteen! The fourteen stars of the Rexel planetary configuration!"

Clara knew he had it already but he was busy being clever and enjoying the look of shock on the witch's face, and she couldn't stand it any longer so she jumped around him and said "I name you Carrionite!"

The witch screamed, before vanishing in flash of light. They all stood in silences

"What did you do?" Martha finally asked.

"She named her. The power of a name. That's old magic." The Doctor murmured. Then he turned to Clara "I really have to figure out how you do that"

* * *

Clara felt that by the end of it she had learnt a lot. Like some witches got a better deal than others, the voodoo one was a lot prettier than the others. That JK Rowling had successfully saved the world hundreds of years before her birth. That Shakespeare had a major crush on Martha. That the famous ruff he wore in the painting was a neck brace. Her favourite by far was finding out that she was going to meet Queen Elizabeth at some point in her future.

After a rather exciting escape they were back in the TARDIS. "Well then Martha Jones, it has been an honour!" the Doctor said "But it is time for us to return you home"

Martha looked disappointed, and even though she wasn't prepared to admit she liked Miss Jones, Clara spoke up anyway. "Aww, c'mon Doctor. One trip to the future? You've taken her to the past already only seems fair." The Doctor cast her a questioning look, but agreed. "Yay!" Clara clapped her hands together.

"How about another planet?" the Doctor suggested, grinning at Martha from over the console.

"Can we go to yours?" Martha asked, jumping up in excitement. Clara watched the smile slide of the Doctor's face.

"Nope, I have an even better idea!" Clara chimed in "Lets go to…" she scanned her brain for any alien planets but the super knowledge was failing her. Instead she went t=with the first place she thought of "New New York!"

"New _New _York?" Martha raised an eyebrow.

"Yup!" Clara smiled "Didn't see much of It last time, we were in a hospital and some psycho took over my body"

"Well, so long as we go to a psycho free zone, no complaints!" Martha grinned, and the Doctor flipped the switch.

**Please Review**


	17. Your Life for What You Love

**Allons-y Impossible Girl**

**OMG! What did you think of Death in Heaven! I wanted to scream at the end when they were in the café together! Anyway, here's Gridlock, sorry for the wait.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who**

Chapter 17

It was raining in the slums. Clara wasn't too impressed considering the view of the city she'd visited on her first trip in the TARDIS had been nothing like the dirty, abandoned street she was stood in now. Add in the fact her shoes really didn't do rain wasn't helping her mood. The rain eventually cleared up and some stalls opened up.

"Customers. Customers! We've got customers!" they shouted.

"We're in business. Mother, open up the Mellow, and the Read."

"Happy, Happy, lovely happy Happy!"

"Anger. Buy some Anger!"

"Get some Mellow. Makes you feel all bendy and soft all day long."

"Don't go to them. They'll rip you off. Do you want some happy?" the final question seemed to be directed at Clara so she smiled and shook her head saying

"I'm good mate" she turned to the Doctor "So they can grow human flesh and sell moods. Is it like drugs?"

"Well" the Doctor pulled a face "In theory, but they mostly fix the not so great side effects so it's legal. I wouldn't go near it if I were you"

A small, pale girl wrapped in grey clothing came out of the shadows and looked at the shouting shop owners with her wide, scary eyes. "Come over here, yeah. And what can I get you, my love?" the shop owner coaxed, drawing the small person to her stall. The Doctor, Clara and Martha drew slightly closer.

"I want to buy Forget." The girl said her voice quiet and sad. If something made her feel like that, Clara couldn't really blaming her for wanting to forget it.

"I've got Forget, my darling. What strength? How much do you want forgetting?" the owner asked.

"It's my mother and father. They went on the motorway." It didn't sound too disastrous to Clara, moterways were fairly harmless apart from the occasional car accident. There was clearly a common thing however.

"Oh, that's a swine. Try this. Forget Forty three. That's two credits." The girl handed over the money in exchange for the small clear patch with the word FORGET 43 printed on it. She was about to do something with it when the Doctor stepped forward.

"Sorry, but hold on a minute. What happened to your parents?" he asked with a frown.

"They drove off." The girl said.

"Yeah, but they might drive back." The Doctor said, his confusion that this hadn't occurred to her already clear.

"Everyone goes to the motorway in the end. I've lost them." She said hopelessly.

"But they can't have gone far. You could find them." The Doctor argued, but the girl clearly wasn't convinced because she pressed the patch to her neck "No. No, no, don't."

A calm look passed over her face and the weighted, distraught expression lifted. "I'm sorry, what were you saying?" she asked them politely.  
"Your parents. Your mother and father. They're on the motorway." The Doctor reminded her.

"Are they?" she didn't look too bothered by this news "That's nice. I'm sorry, I won't keep you." She nodded to Clara and Martha before leaving.

"So that's the human race five billion years in the future. Off their heads on chemicals." Martha asked, making Clara laugh. Suddenly two strong arms grabbed her from behind and a woman was pointing a gun to Martha's head. The stalls all immediately closed there hatches without a word.

"I'm sorry, I'm really, really sorry. We just need three, that's all." The man said, like he really meant it. Panic and fury crossed the Doctor's face.

"No, let her go! I'm warning you, let her go!" he screamed at the people, who looked quite rightly terrified. Clara took their moment of unease to spike her heal on the man's toes and, with skill she didn't know she had, breaking free by elbowing him in the ribs. He howled in pain, but the woman tightened her grip on Martha and the hauled her off through a green door before either Clara or the Doctor had recovered from the first almost kidnaping. They had locked the door, so the Doctor had to sonic it to burst through and race after them. He was too late however, seeing them fly off in a car, Martha unconscious with them.

After staring after the car, feelings mixing up inside of him (Guilt that Martha had been taken away and relief that Clara hadn't) he headed back to the street. Clara raced up to him, and said "Ok, I spoke to the shop owners. They were car-jackers. You get access to the fast lane on this motorway if you're carrying three adults. There was only two of them so they needed a third. The motorway's that way" she pointed in a direction, and despite the situation the Doctor grinned at her.

"I'm glad you're safe" he whispered, pulling her close and kissing the top of her head. "We brought Martha here, we have to save her"

"Of course we do" Clara rolled her eyes, and dragged him in the direction of the lay by "Come on!"

The amount of cars on the motorway was phenomenal. They stretched out in hundreds of rows, horizontally and verticality and the fumes made Clara feel her lungs were on fire. Thankfully the car parked near them opened up and a figure in a World War 2 flying jacket, helmet and goggles came out.

**"**Hey! You daft little street struts. What are you doing standing there? Either get out or get in. Come on!" he called to them in a Irish accent, and they climbed into the car. The guy turned out to be a cat, and with him was a pretty dark haired women who handed them oxygen masks.

"There's this story, says back in the old days, on Junction forty seven, this woman stood in the exhaust fumes for a solid twenty minutes. By the time they found her, her head had swollen to fifty feet." The cat fellow said, which made Clara feel loads better. The woman laughed.

"Oh, you're making it up." She swatted him playfully.

"A fifty foot head! Just think of it. Imagine picking that nose." He laughed, earning another disapproving but laughing comment from the woman. Suddenly they started moving up ahead, but they only went forward a few yards.

"Twenty yards." The cat confirmed Clara's guess, only his next words surprised her "We're having a good day. And who might you be, sir, madame? Very well-dressed for hitchhikers." He indicated to the Doctors suit and Clara's nice skirt and leather jacket.

"Thanks. Sorry, I'm the Doctor." The Doctor had recovered quicker, so it took Clara a few more deep breaths before she pulled off the mask.

"Clara Oswald" she coughed.

"Medical man! My name's Thomas Kincade Brannigan, and this is the bane of my life, the lovely Valerie."

"Nice to meet you." Valarie said warmly.

"And that's the rest of the family behind you." Brannigan said and the Doctor drew back a curtain to reveal a basket full of small kittens. They were very cute, but Clara didn't think she wanted to know how the biology worked out.

"Ah, that's nice. Hello. How old are they?" the Doctor picked one up and Clara gently stroked it.

"Just two months." Valarie said, her eyes full of the light and love of a mother.

"Poor little souls. They've never known the ground beneath their paws. Children of the motorway." Brannigan said it as if children being born in a car were a fairly common thing.

"What, they were born in here?" the Doctor asked.

"We couldn't stop. We heard there were jobs going, out in the laundries on Fire Island. Thought we'd take a chance." Valarie shrugged.

"So you've been driving for two months." Clara gave a low whistle, unable to imagine staying in this cramped space without going barking mad for longer than a week.

"Do I look like a teenager? We've been driving for twelve years now." Brannigan said with a laugh."Started out as newlyweds. Feels like yesterday."

"Feels like twelve years to me." Valarie laughed, but Clara missed the sweet exchange. Driving for _12 years_? To make it even worse they'd only travelled five miles in that time.

* * *

Valarie and Brannigan refused to risk their children to get down to the fast lane, so the Doctor quickly decided they were going to have to walk down. This involved jumping down through each car, inhaling the fumes. After a very long heated argument as to why Clara was no way staying there, they both went. She hadn't really anticipated how far down it was, and her lungs were on fire soon. They borrowed cloths to cover their mouth and nose half way down, but it didn't help much.

The Doctor opened the hatch to the final car, and Clara dropped through, collapsing to the floor of the car and coughing like crazy, unable to breathe. The Doctor grabbed some water from the gentleman driving the car, and quickly crouched to help her. After several long minutes they were both fairly sure she was not in any immediate danger and she sat up.

"Is this the last layer?" the Doctor asked the man, giving Clara some water.

"We're right at the bottom. Nothing below us but the fast lane." He replied. Like Valarie and Brannigan, the gentleman didn't want to go down, having heard stories about what was down there. The Doctor opened the hatch on the floor and peered into the smoke. For a horrible moment Clara thought he was suggesting they jump, but thankfully he was just looking. The fumes were too thick to see what was causing the noise below, but the Doctor boosted the ventilation to reveal giant crabs he called Macra living below.

"The Macra used to be the scourge of this galaxy. Gas. They fed off gas, the filthier the better. They built up a small empire using humans as slaves and mining gas for food." The Doctor explained.

"They don't exactly look like empire builders to me." The man said as he and Clara gathered around the hatch to get a better look.

"Well, that was billions of years ago. Billions. They must have devolved down the years. Now they're just beasts. But they're still hungry and my friend's down there." The Doctor said. As if Clara wasn't scared enough, a very loud and sudden clang came from the roof and one of the cat nuns dropped into the car. "I've invented a sport."

"Doctor, you're a hard man to find." The cat said with a smile.

"No guns. I'm not having guns." the man exclaimed, staring m=wide eyed at the weapon in the nuns hands.

"I only brought this in case of pirates. Doctor, you've got to come with me." She said urgently. The Doctor didn't recognise her at first but she said "You haven't aged at all. Time has been less kind to me."

"Novice Hame!" he realised "No, hold on, get off. Last time we met, you were breeding humans for experimentation."

"I've sought forgiveness, Doctor, for so many years, under his guidance. And if you come with me, I might finally be able to redeem myself."

"I'm not going anywhere." The Doctor said decisively, wrapping an arm tightly around Clara's waist as he spoke "You've got Macra living underneath this city. Macra! And if my friend's still alive, she's stuck down there."

"You've got to come with me right now." Hame insisted, but the Doctor still refused so she grabbed his wrist and with the word "Transport" beemed herself, the Doctor and Clara away.

* * *

Clara jumped to her feet on the rubbish covered floor. Novice Hame revealed they were in the over-city so the Doctor was demanding to talk to the senate of New New York about the people on the motorway. Only Clara didn't hear any of it. She was looking in horror at the skeleton she could just about make out in the darkness. When Hame turned the lights on the whole room revealed to be covered in them.

"They died Doctor, the city died" she said sadly "Twenty four years"

"How?" Clara demanded, eyes pooling with tears "How could every single one of them have died. Its not right!"

"A new chemical. A new mood. They called it Bliss." Clara looked at the patch on the skeletons neck "Everyone tried it. They couldn't stop. A virus mutated inside the compound and became airborne. Everything perished. Even the virus, in the end. It killed the world in seven minutes flat. There was just enough time to close down the walkways and the flyovers, sealing off the under-city. Those people on the motorway aren't lost, Doctor. They were saved." Hame explained. Clara thought of them all going round and round forever, lost as te rest of their world died in a matter of minutes. "There's not enough power to get them out. We did all we could to stop the system from choking."

"Who's we? How did you survive?" the Doctor asked her suspiciously.

"He protected me. And he has waited for you, these long years." Hame said with a smile.

"Doctor." A voice the Doctor recognised immediately and Clara only vaguely remembered echoed through their minds.

"The Face of Boe!" they ran to the side of his tank.

"I knew you would come." Hame explained how the Face of Boe was giving his own life to keep the under city running and stop it from falling into the sea. He asked him to save them, so the Doctor did. Clara watched as he saved every single person in the under-city and Martha reached safety. She sat by the Face of Boe, staring in wonder at someone who drained his life for others.

"It's not so hard you know" his voice suddenly filled her mind. She glanced at the Doctor and Hame, but they hadn't reacted. "Giving your life to save someone you love"

"You love these people?" she murmured "That much?"

"Prehaps" he said "But I learnt from you"

"What do you mean?" she whispered "I'm not brave or selfless enough to give my life for anyone"

"On the contrary" Boe chuckled "You are one of the bravest, most selfless girls I have ever encountered in my long life. But that is your future, and you must forgive me when we next meet"

"What do you mean?" Clara repeated, but the face of Boe said no more to her before he died. And she couldn't help but feel sad.

* * *

"What did he mean?" Martha asked Clara as they strolled a few feet behind the Doctor on their way back to the TARDIS "The Face of Boe? You are not alone. He has us, is that it?"

"I don't think so" Clara said with a small smile "Sorry"

"Then what? Why are you both so secretive?" Martha begged.

"He's the last of his kind you know Martha" Clara said with a heavy sigh, seriously questioning her sanity as she told Martha all this "The Time-Lords burned. There was a war, the Great Time War. Time Lords versus Daleks. And they lost. There is no one else. He's alone" Martha stopped and turned to stare intently at Clara.

"You don't believe that" she decided. "He has told you that, and you knew he wasn't lying, but there is something in you that doesn't believe that"

Clara raised her eyebrows. No matter how true, she wasn't prepared to admit it. "Think what you will" she said, before striding ahead to the TARDIS the Doctor had already entered.

"Clara" Martha called, making her stop in the doorway "What is your problem with me?" she asked tentitivly.

After a few moments careful consideration Clara answered "Martha, I envy you so much! And maybe one day I will figure out why"

Then she entered the TARDIS leaving Martha even more confused.

**Please Review!**


	18. Clara's general view on Companions

**Allons-y Impossible Girl**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who**

Chapter 18

Martha wandered down a long corridor in the TARDIS, trying to shake the chilling memories of the Daleks in Manhattan. The Doctor was tinkering with the TARDIS in the console room and Clara had gone for a shower after crawling around in the sewers. They said that after a few hours of relaxing they'd take Martha home to get some of her own clothes, so after a quick clean-up she was back in the clothes she'd been wearing when she'd flown off with the Doctor.

The TARDIS was awesome. So far she'd come across a swimming pool, a room full of flowers, an enormous wardrobe and now the biggest library she'd ever entered in her life. Thousands of shelves stretched outwards and into several more stories high, each of them filled with books. Martha walked further through, past sections full of books that told of alien biology and forgotten history.

After a bit more walking around she came across a soft red sofa with a coffee table in front of it. In one corner of Clara was sat with her legs stretched out, dressed in a tank top and very small, tight shorts with wet hair and a red coffee mug in front of her. She was reading some book and must have heard Martha approaching because she looked up.

"Mind if I join you?" she asked, nodding at the other end of the sofa. Clara nodded and placed the book down, drawing her knees to her chest and picking up her mug. Martha sat and got comfortable before an awkward silence fell over them.

"You're thinking about them Daleks aren't you?" Clara said after several minutes of studying the other woman carefully. Martha looked up in surprise. "Yeah. I'm guessing everyone who ever travelled with the Doctor gets messed up by the Daleks. Sarah Jane got this look in her eye when I mentioned them"

"Who's Sarah Jane?" Martha asked.

"She used to travel with the Doctor. I met her once, didn't like her much" Clara wrinkled her nose, thinking of the headache she got whenever she thought of Rose, Sarah Jane ad Martha. Well, she was warming up the latter.

"Oh." Martha nodded "Was she just not nice or like you don't like me?" Clara laughed.

"Like I don't like you." She confirmed "Then again… you're not so bad"

"Thanks… I think" Martha frowned "So who else have you met?"

"Just Rose Tyler. Didn't think much of her either"

"I'm starting to see a recurring theme here" Martha pointed out "Yeah, he mentions her sometimes. But isn't she stuck in some parallel universe? How is she a problem?"

"She's not" Clara shrugged "My brain just seems incapable of registering that. She's ok. Convinced the Doctor to let me stay at the battle of Canary Warf"

"All those Daleks and cyberthings!" Martha said "My cousin worked there… never came home"

"I'm sorry" Clara offered, and she sounded as though she genuinely meant it "That's where I first met Daleks… you did better than I did. I collapsed. I've not really been the same since"

"But the Daleks didn't bother you at all. I was half unsure if they were aware you were there."

"Oh they were aware alright. But Daleks do not harm their own kind" Clara said flatly.

"But that would mean…" she trailed off and Clara shot her a dark look "HOLY CRAP!"

"Calm down" Clara hissed "I'm not a dalek. I swear I'm not. The Doctor ran scans and everything. For some reason they just think there's something Daleky about me"

"OK… is that normal?" Martha asked.

"No, definitely not. We're still trying to figure out what it is" Clara said, draining her mug and setting it down on the table with a louder than necessary clunk. "But I dunno… Sometimes I feel like I'm living half a life. Like this isn't real. But at the same time I have never been moresure it's all actually happening"

Martha had no reply, so she just stayed silent. She wanted to say it. Mention the moment she had back in 1930 New York when she had turned and been sure she saw Clara, dressed differently with different hair but none the less Clara, and a tall white man dressed in Victorian clothing. There had been a shout, she'd seen the blood, and her scream had caught in her throat. She turned to the Doctor only to see Clara stood right beside him, laughing at something he said. When she looked back the dead Clara and the man had both gone, only a faint gold dust fading where they stood. She wanted to say it so badly, but she couldn't do it. She didn't want to come across mad, or make the Doctor question Clara even more. He was so obviously in love with her, as she was him, only neither would admit it. Because he wasn't sure she wasn't evil, or some trap, and she wouldn't break his hearts, get exactly what she wanted. And she was scared he'd turn her away for being strange and not quite human. So she said nothing.

After a few moments Clara suddenly jumped up, nearly knocking over the table. "C'mon, let's go find that Time-Lord!"

She raced out of the library and down the corridor to the console room, expertly dodging and leaping over the items that the TARDIS randomly made appear in attempt to trip her up. Thankfully they disappeared as Martha came along. Clara was so light on the balls of her bare feet it almost looked like she was flying. And as her hair flew out behind her Martha was almost sure she saw her small figure shift strangely with that gold light that often glowed in Clara's eyes. Then it was gone, so perhaps she imagined it.

When Martha came into the console room, Clara had her arms hooked around the Doctor's neck and was stretched up on her tiptoes as he kissed her. It was sweet and loving and she smiled against his lips, laughing at something he'd whispered in her ear. He wrapped his strong arms around her petite waist and lifted her clean off her feet, spinning her around.

Martha smiled at them. It was one of their moments they somehow fitted around the world of aliens and near-death-experiences. And even though it was no less beautiful and honest as any of the other moments she'd witnessed so far, this time fierce determination burned behind Clara's laughing smile. Something that told herself '_I am real. I have to be. I love him too much not to be'_

Clara Oswald hid her feelings well. But she made this one was being made clear. Just to who Martha wasn't quite sure.

**Ok so bit short, a little in between moment.**

**I probably won't write out the actual adventures until we get to Human Nature/Family of Blood because I don't see their stories really being changed with Clara's involvement. PM me or leave a review if there's a particular episode you think I should write. I'm currently writing the chapters for Sound of Drums/Last of the Time Lords as they are the big ones from season three for this story.**

**Please Review! I love hearing your thoughts!**


	19. Saying I Love You

**Allons-y Impossible Girl**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who**

Chapter 19

_Clara climbed down the escape ladder, her heart pounding in her chest. It was dark and the thick white gear provided by Starship Alaska did little to protect her from the cold in this weird place they'd crash landed. She wondered down the corridor, breathing fast and trying to be reasonable about the whirring sounds in the shadows. She could see blue lights, feel things moving around her._

_Then they were right up close, the horrible creature that had invaded her home when she was a child. Daleks. They back her into a wall and her scream was caught in her throat. They said nothing, and despite having seen the destruction they brought, what they heartlessly did to people, it wasn't what scared her most._

_"__Where am i?" she asked "Where am I? I don't know where I am, I don't know where I am!" _

_An eyestalk moved up and down her body. Finally a rusty voice said "Human, Female. Intelligence… extremely high. Initiate full conversion!"_

_Somehow even though they didn't have arms they successfully dragged her into a strange contraption, ignoring her please and sobbing. Because she was so scared. She was young and genius and loved her life. She loved proving to people she was so much cleverer then them, she loved flirting and confusing people with her wit and charm. She loved being a Junior Entertainment Manager and she loved that she was finally going to see the stars. She loved her siblings and parents back home, she loved her friends and she loved being Oswin Oswald, her mum's soufflé girl. She didn't want it to end. She didn't want to turn cold and to hatred and destruction. She didn't want to spend the rest of eternity with a load of mad Daleks. She couldn't imagine anything worse._

_"__I am not a Dalek I am human!" she shouted as the machine clamped down on her, and all sorts of painful instruments broke through her skin causing complete agony. She saw the wars and thoughts rush through her head, and through the pain could feel the memories, the life, and her humanity slipping away. "I am not a Dalek I am human" her voice broke, slipping into a metallic Dalek tone. _

Clara's eyes flew open; she jumped out of bed and raced to the bathroom, just before she was violently sick. She coughed a few times before sitting down on the side of the bathtub and drawing a glass of water from the sink. Her heart was pounding in her chest and her legs were trembling.

"You ok?" the Doctor's voice came from the doorway. She looked up to see him leaning against the frame, his hair a mess and his brow furrowed in concern.

"Yeah" Clara said, quickly brushing away the tears streaming down her cheeks "I just had a nightmare is all"

"Fifth time this week. I heard you screaming" the Doctor said, sitting down beside her and putting an arm over her shaking shoulders. "What was it about?"

Clara thought of the awful shrieks, of the sharp and alien instruments piercing her skin, slowly tearing her apart. She jumped down and threw up again, the Doctor kindly pulling her hair back. "Daleks" she managed to choke out before she started sobbing.

The Doctor was lost. Clara hardly ever cried, not to his knowledge. Now she was falling apart on her bathroom floor because of a nightmare. It broke both his hearts to see her like this, but he wasn't too sure what to do. So he sat down on the cool white tiles beside her and let her sob into his chest. He gently rocked her back and forth, stroking her hair and whispering what he hoped were soothing words of comfort. Her hair was soft and smelt of cherries and she fitted so perfectly in his arms, even when she was crying her eyes out.

After a while Clara's sobs quietened, so the Doctor gathered her up into him arms and carried back into her room. He laid her gently on her bed and softly kissed her on the head before leaving the room. Only he didn't go anywhere. He sat right outside her bedroom door, ready to rush in there if Clara woke up crying again. He would do anything to keep her safe, he told himself, he owed her that. What for, he wasn't quite sure.

He sat alone in the dark corridor, his back pressed against her bedroom door and whispered "I love you Clara Oswald"

In her sleep, Clara smiled softly.

* * *

Martha burst through the door to 'John Smith's' room shouting "Is he all right?"

"Excuse me, Martha." A clipped voice said. Martha's eyes met Matron's hard ones as she stood tending to the Doctor's head "It's hardly good form to enter a master's study without knocking."

"Sorry. Right. Yeah." Martha said distractedly, backing up to the door and knockin on it before rushing forward "But is he all right? They said you fell down the stairs, Sir."

"No, it was just a tumble, that's all." The Doctor waved it off in his human voice. It was basically the same as his time-lord one, only more proper.

"Have you checked for concussion?" Martha asked anxiously, trying to peer at the injury.

"I have. And I daresay I know a lot more about it than you." Matron said in a cold voice. Martha was reminded once more that here she was nothing but a maid. Not a medical student/time traveller.

The Doctor told Nurse Redfern about his dreams, their adventures and showed her his journal. Martha felt anger bubble up within her as she watched their flirting. The Doctor may not have his memories, but it didn't change the fact he had a girlfriend who he was in love with. The nurse confirmed him human, and Martha was relieved the change had been successful. There had been no way of checking really.

"It's wonderful." Joan complimented his drawing skill as she leafed through the journal. She stopped at one page "And quite an eye for the pretty girls." She said a slight icy tone in his voice. Martha knew what picture she had found. She had seen it once briefly herself. It was a sketch of Clara, showing just how beautiful he thought her to be even when he couldn't remember her.

"Oh no, no," the Doctor protested but her heart wasn't really in it "she's just an invention. This character, Clara. I call her, Clara. She's strangely…"

"Impossible?" Martha supplied under her breath.

"Yes that's it!" the Doctor gave her an odd look before moving on to talk about the TARDIS.

Martha hated being here at Farthingham Boys School. She couldn't wait until they could leave.

* * *

The second time she burst in on the Doctor, he was kissing the Matron. He shouted at her, and she raced out again. She didn't stop running for the whole mile to the TARDIS and her hand was shaking so much she could barely get her key in the lock.

Clara was sitting in the chair in the console room, one leg tucked under her and her chin resting on the other knee. She wore dark blue sweats and a large white knitted jumper, her hair scraped back in a messy knot. She looked so small, so faded without the Doctor.

"You ok Martha?" she frowned, noticing the expression on her face.

"I-" Martha swallowed "Yeah, just had a bit of a shock is all"

How could she tell her? Clara seemed so lost with him. She had refused to leave the TARDIS, begged Martha to go without her, she could help later. Now Martha understood why.

* * *

They all hid in the bushes, watching the TARDIS. Martha felt sick with the thought of Clara being trapped in their, and preyed the TARDIS survailance was working. "Come back, Doctor. Come home. Come and claim your prize. Out you come, Doctor. There's a good boy. Come to the Family." The Family of Blood taunted.

"You recognise it, don't you?" Martha whispered, seeing the look in the Doctor's eyes.

"I've never seen it in my life." The Doctor replied, but Martha couldn't give up. Not with Clara trapped inside it and the future in need of saving.

"Do you remember its name?"

"I'm sorry, John, but you wrote about it. The blue box. You dreamt of a blue box." Joan said, and Martha like her more than she ever had before.

"I'm not. I'm John Smith. That's all I want to be. John Smith, with his life, and his job, and his love. Why can't I be John Smith? Isn't he a good man?" the Doctor said desperately. Joan took his hand.

"Yes. Yes, he is." She said softly.

"Why can't I stay?"

"But we need the Doctor." Martha said in frustration

"What am I, then? Nothing. I'm just a story." The Doctor said. Suddenly there was a crash and they all turned to look at the TARDIS and the family. "What on earth…" the Doctor stared as with a final crash the TARDIS doors opened and a small figure came flying out. She landed on the ground and kicked the door shut with her foot before jumping up. The scarecrows advanced on her but she fought them off with some surprisingly skilled moves Martha hadn't seen her use before. Then she was running off in their direction. Martha reached out and grabbed her small ankle, tugging her into the bushes with surprising strength. The Doctor and Joan stared at her, taking in her sweatpants, t-shirt, bare feet and long messy. Then the Doctor looked at her, and was hit with something.

"I know you" he murmured, and his hand reached towards her pale face. Then he pulled it back and clasped Joan's hand. "No" he said. Then he ran, and they all followed, Martha filling Clara in.

They hid in Lucy Cartwright's home. The cottage was dark and the table was laid for tea.

"Hello? No one home. We should be safe here." Joan said softly.

"Whose house is it, though?"

"Er, the Cartwrights. That little girl at the school, she's Lucy Cartwright, or she's taken Lucy Cartwright's form. If she came home this afternoon and if the parents tried to stop their little girl, then they were vanished." She touched the teapot "Stone cold. How easily I accept these ideas."

Clara looked at her. She was a pretty enough lady; she could see why the Doctor liked her. As she spoke of accepting the ideas, Clara thought back to her first trip in the TARDIS, how she had agreed after it to accept that some people died.

"I must go to them, before anyone else dies." The Doctor said.

"You can't." Joan cried before Clara could "Martha, there must be something we can do." She said desperately.

"Not without the watch." Martha sighed.

"You lost the watch!" Clara shouted, making everyone jump. Martha explained and she held a hand to her head. This was worse than any nightmare.

"You are you?" Joan asked, looking Clara up and down.

"Clara Oswald. The Doctor's companion" she said shortly.

"Oh another one? You're this Doctor's companions." The Doctor said "Can't you help? What exactly do you do for him? Why does he need you?"

"You don't know!" Clara said softly, looking up at him "You have no idea!"

"Yet I am supposed to become him!" the Doctor demanded "Is the truth so terrible that you cannot tell me before it's too late?"

There was a knock at the cottage door, and Latimer came in. In his hand was the watch, and Clara took it from him and held it out to the Doctor.

"Take it" she whispered, her eyes melting into his own.

"I won't." he said.

"Please" Clara whispered, her eyes getting even wider. The strange memories swum to the surface, but she fought them back.

"You've had this watch all this time? Why didn't you return it?" Joan asked Latimer.

"Because it was waiting. And because I was so scared of the Doctor." The boy explained "Because I've seen him. He's like fire and ice and rage. He's like the night and the storm in the heart of the sun. He's ancient and forever. He burns at the centre of time and he can see the turn of the universe. And he's wonderful."

The words sank in, and the Doctor listened, despite his protests.

"I've still got this. The journal." Joan said softy, holding up the book.

"Those are just stories."

"Now we know that's not true. Perhaps there's something in here." She began to leaf through when there was a big bang and the entire cottage shook.

"What the hell?" Martha shrieked and they all gathered by the window to watch the fireballs falling to earth.

"They're destroying the village." This seemed to convince the Doctor.

"The watch." He said steadily, holding out his hand. Clara took a step towards him. The watch whispered, Latimer spoke, and Joan begged John not to. Clara could have cried for joy when he said "Oh, low level telepathic field. You were born with it. Just an extra synaptic engram causing. Is that how he talks?" he sounded suddenly frightened.

"That's him. All you have to do is open it and he's back." Martha said.

"You knew this all along and yet you watched while Nurse Redfern and I-"

"I didn't know how to stop you!" Martha cried "He gave me a list of things to watch out, for but that wasn't included."

"Falling in love? That didn't even occur to him?" the Doctor asked incredulously. Martha glanced at Clara.

"No."

"Then what sort of man is that? And now you expect me to die?" the Doctor spat.

"It was always going to end, though! The Doctor said the Family's got a limited lifespan, and that's why they need to consume a Time Lord. Otherwise, three months and they die. Like mayflies, he said."

"So your job was to execute me." He said in disgust. Martha didn't know what to say, so Clara stepped forward.

"Yes." She said softly "Yes it was. That's what he's like. You asked us why he needs us, well it's because he's lonely. He needs us, because he's not all good. I would never want him to travel alone, because he is so wonderful, he just needs someone to make him see it." She closed his hand around the watch "People are dying out there. They need him and I need him. Because you've got no idea of what he's like. He is everything. He's just everything to me. I could never live without him. I love him so much, and I could never say it, so even if this is my last chance, and he'll never say it back then I'll tell you. I love you. I love you now, and I will love you always. No matter what face, or what he does, I will always love you. John Smith, or the Doctor, I still love you. And if there is even the smallest part of you that ever loved me, then you will save them. You will _do as you are told._"

He looked down in her wide honest eyes underneath her long lashes. They were a gorgeous chocolate brown. Then he looked again, and he was falling through the streams of gold. He saw just how much she loved him.

He knew what he had to do.

* * *

Clara watched him come up the hill as she leaned against the TARDIS in the pouring rain. He had been saying goodbye to Joan.

"Right then. Molto bene." He said with a grin, but Clara could see past it.

"How was she?" she asked. The Doctor shrugged.

"Time we moved on" he said "I may have loved her at one point, but we can't be like that" he pushed open the door to the TARDIS, only Clara stood in the way.

"About last night, what I said" she took a deep breath.

"I love you too" the Doctor said very abruptly, before she could begin to take any of it back to save her pride. Clara looked absolutely stunned.

"Wh-What?"

"You heard me" the Doctor said "I love you too" then he went into the TARDIS, and Clara couldn't stop the smile from spreading across her face.

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	20. Immortal Man meet Impossible Girl

**Allons-y Impossible Girl **

**Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who**

Chapter 20

Clara was getting scared. Terror had slowly and surly built up inside of her over the past few months and now she wasn't sure if she could take it anymore. And it wasn't any aliens or the people they faced on their adventures. It was herself.

Clara had never felt more sure that this was where she belonged the day she met the Doctor. By his side. Only now with the dreams and the memories that weren't hers and the knowledge that came from nowhere, she was more scared then she had ever been in her life. Because all she wanted to be his human companion and travel the stars with him forever, in sweet, honest love.

She could feel it coming. Like a shadow creeping up on her. It was coming, and as terrified as she was of whatever _it_ would turn out to be, she couldn't help shake the feeling that it would finally provide her with and explanation. But she put it from her mind.

"Cardiff?" she heard Martha saying from the console room as she brushed out her almost curls in the bedroom she and the Doctor shared. Neither of them did domestic, but since they had gotten stuck in 1969 without the TARDIS and had been forced to share and tiny apartment for several weeks, both had grown to like the feeling of his arms around her while she slept, three hearts beating against each other. Neither had felt willing to stop, so they spent the nights together in either Clara's room or his room.

"Ah, but the thing about Cardiff, it's built on a rift in time and space, just like California and the San Andreas Fault, but the rift bleeds energy." The Doctor explained "Every now and then I need to open up the engines, soak up the energy and use it as fuel."

"So it's a pit stop." Martha said with a grin.

"Exactly. Should only take twenty seconds. The rift's been active."

"Wait a minute. They had an earthquake in Cardiff a couple of years ago. Was that you?" Martha asked. Clara wondered the same, until an image of Rose and a man who wasn't the Doctor but still was the Doctor flashed through her mind and made her drop the brush. The minute it touched the floor the snogbox made it vanish and Clara swore. That was the third brush this month.

"Bit of trouble with the Slitheen." The Doctor said smoothly "A long time ago. Lifetimes. I was a different man back then."

Clara picked up her phone and slid it into the pocket of her ripped skinny jeans and pulled on her black blazer before leaving the room. Then she suddenly was thrown off her feet as the entire TARDIS went thump.

"We're accelerating into the future." She heard the Doctor shout from the console room as she stumbled towards him "The year one billion. Five billion. Five trillion. Fifty trillion? What? The year one hundred trillion? That's impossible."

"Right here" she said as she slid into the console room and grabbed the console. "Where the hell are we going?"

"The end of the universe" the Doctor said. After a few more not so pleasant minutes they came to a stop, and the Doctor said "Well, we've landed."

"So what's out there?" Martha asked, excitement gleaming in her eyes.

"I don't know." The Doctor said.

"Ooo, that's rare, say it again" Clara teased lightly.

"Not even the Time Lords came this far." The Doctor said defensively "We should leave. We should go. We should really, really go."

But then they grinned and all headed to the door. Outside wasn't too impressive. A large quarry, but all their eyes were drawn to the man lying very dead beside the TARDIS. Martha immediately kicked into medical mode.

"Can't get a pulse." She said. Then she turned to the Doctor "Hold on. You've got that medical kit thing." She ran into the TARDIS without another word.

Clara watched as the Doctor leant over him and murmured "Hello again. Oh, I'm sorry."

Martha raced out the TARDIS a moment later and knelt beside the man "Here we go. Get out of the way." She said breathlessly. Then she finally noticed his clothes "It's a bit odd, though. Not very hundred trillion. That coat's more like World War Two."

"I think he came with us." The Doctor said with a frown.

"What, like from Cardiff?" Clara asked in disbelief.

"Must have been clinging to the outside of the Tardis all the way through the vortex. Well, that's very him." The Doctor mused.

"Oh of course" Clara through her arms up "Only you would know the guy who brought us to the end of the universe" though it explained how she felt she recognised him. Only this man was strange. She didn't hate him, and he was familiar in a different way as to other people.

"Friend of mine. Used to travel with me, back in the old days." The Doctor said.

"But he's. I'm sorry, there's no heartbeat. There's nothing. He's dead." Martha said, standing up. Only she was proven wrong because as soon as the words left her mouth he sat up with a gasp and grabbed her, causing her to scream. "Oh, so much for me. It's all right. Just breathe deep. I've got you." She said.

"Captain Jack Harkness." The man said with a flirtatious smile "And who are you?"

"Martha Jones." She said, slightly breathless.

"Nice to meet you, Martha Jones." Jack said, but clearly the Doctor didn't appreciate this.

"Oh, don't start." He complained, and the Captain turned to him.

"I was only saying hello." He said defensivly.

"I don't mind." Martha smiled, helping him to his feet. Jack turned to face the Doctor.

"Doctor." He said in all seriousness.

"Captain."

"Good to see you." He said.

"And you. Same as ever. Although, have you had work done?" the Doctor was clearly trying to avoid something.

"You can talk." Jack snorted, looking at the Doctor's face.

"Oh yes, the face. Regeneration. How did you know this was me?" the Doctor asked.

"The police box kind of gives it away. I've been following you for a long time. You abandoned me." He said, anger and betrayal shining in his eyes. Eyes Clara was sure she'd seen before.

"Did I? Busy life. Moving on." The Doctor didn't seem bothered by this.

"Just got to ask. The Battle of Canary Wharf. I saw the list of the dead. It said Rose Tyler." Jack looked achingly sad for a minute there.

"Oh, no! Sorry, she's alive."

"You're kidding." Jack looked immensely relieved.

"Parallel world, safe and sound. And Mickey, and her mother." The Doctor said with a smile, and then Jack hugged him like he couldn't take it anymore, he was so glad to see him and that she was safe.

"Rose" Clara said, flicking her eyebrows upwards and drawing the attention on her. Something completely unnameable flashed through Jack's eyes when he looked at her. Then the smile was back.

"Pleasure to meet you" he took her hand and placed a light kiss on it, but Clara remained unimpressed. The Doctor wasn't pleased either.

"Hey" he said warningly, and wrapped an almost possessive arm around his girlfriend's waist. She only laughed and reached up to kiss him. Jack watched the whole exchange with wide eyes.

* * *

They decided to keep walking across the scrubland while Jack recounted how the Doctor had abandoned him.

"So there I was, stranded in the year two hundred one hundred, ankle deep in Dalek dust, and he goes off without me. But I had this." He held up the strange bracelet thing on his wrist "I used to be a Time Agent. It's called a vortex manipulator. He's not the only one who can time travel."

"Oh, excuse me." The Doctor looked almost offended "That is not time travel. It's like, I've got a sports car and you've got a space hopper." Clara giggled.

"All right, so I bounced. I thought 21st century, the best place to find the Doctor, except that I got it a little wrong. Arrived in 1869, this thing burnt out, so it was useless."

"Told you." The Doctor said smugly

"I had to live through the entire twentieth century waiting for a version of you that would coincide with me." Jack complained, sending a sideways glance at Clara, which she missed.

"But that makes you more than one hundred years old." Martha pointed out.

"And looking good, don't you think? So I went to the time rift, based myself there because I knew you'd come back to refuel. Until finally I get a signal on this…" he gestured to his rucksack "detecting you and here we are."

"But the thing is, how come you left him behind, Doctor?" Martha asked curiously.

"I was busy." Was the only answer he supplied.

"Is that what happens, though, seriously? Do you just get bored with us one day and disappear?"

"Not if you're blonde." Jack said. He watched Clara stiffen and the Doctor pulled her even closer.

* * *

Jack didn't get a chance to talk to the Doctor properly until they went to the room no one except he could survive. Clara and Martha stayed upstairs with Professor Yana and Chantho while they went downstairs. Jack went into the radiation chamber while the Doctor stayed behind the door.

"When did you first realise?" he finally asked.

"Earth, 1892. Got in a fight in Ellis Island. A man shot me through the heart. Then I woke up. Thought it was kind of strange. But then it never stopped. Fell off a cliff, trampled by horses, World War One, World War Two, poison, starvation, a stray javelin. In the end, I got the message. I'm the man who can never die. And all that time you knew." Jack stared at him accusingly through the thick glass.

"That's why I left you behind. It's not easy even just looking at you, Jack, because you're wrong." The Doctor said bluntly.

"Thanks." Jack said sarcastically.

"You are. I can't help it. I'm a Time Lord. It's instinct. It's in my guts. You're a fixed point in time and space. You're a fact. That's never meant to happen. Even the Tardis reacted against you, tried to shake you off. Flew all the way to the end of the universe just to get rid of you." The Doctor explained.

"So what you're saying is that you're, er, prejudiced?" Jack said.

"I never thought of it like that." The Doctor admitted.

"Last thing I remember, back when I was mortal, I was facing three Daleks. Death by extermination. And then I came back to life." Jack looked right at him for a minute "What happened?"

"Rose." The Doctor said simply. The moment he said it he felt funny. That face had loved Rose, and a part of him still loved her, but right now Clara was his world.

"I thought you'd sent her back home."

"She came back. Opened the heart of the Tardis and absorbed the time vortex itself." The Doctor said simply.

"What does that mean, exactly?"

"No one's ever mean to have that power." He explained "If a Time Lord did that, he'd become a god. A vengeful god. But she was human." He thought back to her on satellite 5 "Everything she did was so human. She brought you back to life but she couldn't control it. She brought you back forever. That's something, I suppose. The final act of the Time War was life."

"Do you think she could change me back?" Jack asked casually, and there was something hopeful and fearful in his eyes.

"I took the power out of her." The Doctor said "And then I regenerated. She didn't want this face, so we said goodbye. Met her again several years later, and she went to live in the parallel world with her family and her boyfriend. Only she can't get back now"

"I'm sorry." Jack said.

"Yeah." The Doctor said sadly. Then he shrugged. "But she's happy. She didn't have to go it was her decision. And I'm happy. I have Clara. And Martha I suppose"

"What is she?" Jack asked.

"Clara?" the Doctor looked surprised "Human of course. Why'd you ask?"

"She can't be human." Jack frowned "She just can't be"

"Why not?"

"I keep meeting her" Jack said "Everywhere I go I run into her. She looks the same, but she never remembers me. Usually has the same name, but completely different backstory"

"But that's impossible" the Doctor said. "I've done scan after scan"

"I even saw her die a few times. Still bounces back. Got a little obsessed there once" Jack said "Always the same age as well, and has very few connections, she's like a pattern. How old is your Clara?"

"I don't know, around 25 or 26" the Doctor said.

"She doesn't look it. She never does. She doesn't look a day over 20. You're a time lord so you must have noticed. Has she aged even a day since you met her?" the Doctor's expression answered Jack's question.

"the Daleks. They won't hurt her. They say she is one of them" the Doctor muttered.

"Hmm, well, you pick them well Doc" Jack shrugged as he fixed the last one. The Doctor rang the Lieutenant and they began to leave. Then Martha came hurtling down the corridor, shouting about the Professor and his watch.

* * *

Clara stared at Yana as he stared mesmerised at the watch. Then he opened it. She began to back away, realising something was about to happen. Then the Professor looked at her and the memories swam upwards. The door slammed behind her, and she fell unconscious, hearing the Doctor, Martha and Jack begging the Professor to let them in.

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